A research from behavioral economic perspercitve on determining the effect of positive and negative emotional situations on the consumers' purchasing decisions

Emotions are an important part of our daily life. Especially recently, businesses attach importance to research on the concept of emotion and functions to better understand consumer behaviors. However, people have been considered rational beings by the traditional economic approach for a long time. According to the traditional economic approach, humans are the self -interesting creatures that act within the framework of some assumptions and are called "homoecomicus". The behavioral economic approach deals with people from the "only human" aspect. Therefore, behavioral economics argues that it is not possible for people to always show rational behaviors. In this aspect, behavioral economics with the psychologic based methods, examines the deviations of human behavior from the assumption of "homoeconomicus". When the researches on emotions were examined, no research has been found purchasing decisions from the behavioral economics perspective. This constitutes the basic starting point of the study. In this thesis, the assumptional choice technique of the behavioral economics was used as a method. In addition, by the scientific research preocess of behavioral economics, participant behaviors were examined, and the findings were evaluated with scientific methods and compared with traditional economics approaches. In this study, the survey technique was used. The study's main purpose is to determine the effect of consumers' emotions on purchasing decisions from the perspective of the behavioral economics method. In addition, it is aimed to determine the effect of demographic variables and consumer profiles of the participants on the purchasing decision. The emotional situations are categorized to be positive and negative. The effect of emotional situations on purchasing decisions has been examined in the context of anchoring, herd behavior and framing methods of behavioral economics. The sample of the study consists of 500 participants. Surveys consisting of 4 sections and 40 questions. The survey forms consists demographic information, decision making styles inventory, PANAS and scenario questions. Within the conceptual model of the study, 9 research questions were developed. Reliability, validity and normal distribution situations of the data determined. Then, Correlation, U test and H test were applied. There is strong evidence that anchoring, herd behavior and framing methods affect purchasing decisions. In addition, the research questions developed within the scope of the study were analyzed within the scope of tests. Within the scope of anchoring, herd behavior and framing methods, It was determined that the emotional states of the consumers gave statistically significant results on purchasing decisions.