Assessing Emotions in Sales Interactions: A Reaction Time-Based Procedure

Abstract

Although self-inspection is likely to introduce a cognition bias in the assessment of emotions, quantifying affect, anxiety, or joy in sales interactions is common research practice. To provide practitioners and scholars with a quantification of emotions that enables the measurement of respondents’ emotions without cognitive efforts, this study introduces a novel reaction time-based procedure that relies on a validated picture scale. In the empirical part, we evaluate sales-supporting communication measures. Both emotional leverage as well as the effect on purchase intentions are discussed.