Positive Anticipatory Feelings

1. Abstract

The Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale is a concise, psychometrically validated three-item self-report instrument designed to operationalize and quantify the momentary affective pleasure, excitement, and positive emotional arousal experienced by an individual when contemplating the future acquisition, delivery, or consumption of a desired object or event. Developed and validated by Mukherjee, Smith, and Burton (2023) within the theoretical context of intertemporal decision-making, consumer psychology, and anticipatory utility, the scale captures the hedonic value derived from the period of waiting itself. The instrument employs a unidimensional structure measured on a 7-point Likert response format ranging from 1 (Strongly disagree) to 7 (Strongly agree), with overall scores calculated as the mean composite of all items. Empirical evaluations across pilot testing and multiple rigorous experimental studies reveal exceptional psychometric properties, including high internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha coefficients typically exceeding .90), robust convergent validity with constructs such as pre-order purchase intentions and product evaluations, and distinct discriminant validity separating it from outcome-based utility and generic positive affect. By capturing the nuanced psychological phenomenon wherein delay fosters pleasurable prospective imagery rather than mere frustration, the Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale offers researchers and clinicians a reliable diagnostic metric for assessing positive prospective affect, consumer pre-order psychology, and savoring-based interventions in behavioral economics and affective science.

2. Keywords

positive anticipatory feelings, anticipatory utility, savoring, intertemporal choice, consumer psychology, prospective affect, delay of gratification, psychometrics, pre-order evaluations, emotional forecasting

3. Authors

The scale was developed and introduced by an academic research team specializing in marketing, consumer behavior, and psychometric measurement:

• Amaradri Mukherjee, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Marketing, Portland State University, School of Business, Portland, Oregon, United States. Dr. Mukherjee's research centers on pricing strategies, digital marketing, intertemporal consumer decisions, and psychological biases in product valuation.
• Ronn J. Smith, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, College of Business, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, United States. Dr. Smith investigates behavioral decision theory, consumer processing of numerical and promotional information, and sensory marketing.
• Scot Burton, Ph.D. — Distinguished Professor and Tyson Chair in Food and Consumer Products Research, Department of Marketing, Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. Dr. Burton is an internationally recognized expert in consumer health, behavioral economics, advertising effects, and structural equation modeling methodology.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale is to capture the subjective, immediate emotional rewards that emerge while actively waiting for a future consumption experience. In classical economic models, the period between purchase commitment and product delivery was traditionally framed as an economic cost—a temporal delay that discounts value according to time preference and delay discounting models. However, psychological science and behavioral economics demonstrate that human beings frequently derive positive hedonic value from anticipation itself. The Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale was specifically engineered to measure this psychological phenomenon, providing an empirical bridge between theoretical models of anticipatory utility and observable behavioral intentions.

Within academic research, the instrument serves as an indispensable tool for exploring how pre-order intervals, product launches, release countdowns, and scheduled rewards influence prospective buyers. Standard measures of product attitudes frequently assess cognitive appraisals of the product's attributes or post-consumption satisfaction; such metrics fail to capture the real-time affective valence generated during the waiting period. The Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale isolates this momentary temporal experience, enabling investigators to examine how marketing variables (such as price promotions, pre-order framing, and brand status) modulate affective savoring. Furthermore, it allows researchers to pinpoint the tipping point where prolonged waiting ceases to provide positive emotional excitement and degenerates into temporal fatigue, frustration, or buyer remorse.

Beyond consumer psychology and marketing, the instrument holds significant utility across applied clinical, organizational, and positive psychological contexts. In positive psychology, the construct aligns directly with cognitive savoring—the capacity to attend to, appreciate, and enhance positive experiences across temporal dimensions. Measuring positive anticipatory feelings allows clinicians and behavioral therapists to quantify deficits in prospective hedonic capacity, such as those observed in anticipatory anhedonia, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety. By evaluating an individual's capacity to generate positive emotional arousal when envisioning future rewards, practitioners can assess the efficacy of behavioral activation therapies designed to cultivate hope, optimism, and forward-looking savoring.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the scale is positive anticipatory feelings, defined as the current, conscious affective state characterized by excitement, pleasant expectation, and hedonic joy evoked through the mental simulation of a future reward. This construct is distinct from related temporal and emotional phenomena in several critical aspects:

Distinction from Anticipated Emotion

In psychometrics and behavioral decision theory, scholars draw a fundamental operational distinction between anticipated emotions and anticipatory feelings (e.g., Loewenstein et al., 2001). Anticipated emotions refer to cognitive predictions of how one expects to feel in the future once an outcome occurs (e.g., "I predict I will feel delighted when I open the box next month"). In contrast, positive anticipatory feelings represent visceral, immediate affective states experienced in the present moment while contemplating the future event (e.g., "Thinking about receiving this product right now makes me feel excited"). The Mukherjee et al. (2023) construct focuses squarely on this present-state emotional arousal driven by prospective cognition.

Dimensional Attributes of the Construct

Although the scale operates unidimensionally to provide a parsimonious index, the underlying construct encompasses three interconnected facets of prospective positive affect:

• Affective Savoring of the Waiting Period: The capacity to derive subjective pleasure from temporal postponement, transforming waiting from an obstacle into a source of value. The individual recognizes that the interval of delay sustains pleasurable curiosity and mental engagement.
• Prospective Physiological and Emotional Excitement: A state of heightened, positively valenced arousal elicited by forward-looking mental imagery. This dimension encompasses the somatic markers of enthusiasm, energetic readiness, and positive arousal triggered by cognitive representations of the impending reward.
• Generalized Positive Valence Toward the Future State: A global feeling of optimism, delight, and cognitive comfort experienced when dwelling on the forthcoming receipt of the object or event, counteracting negative feelings such as impatience or dread.

By capturing these attributes, positive anticipatory feelings represent an affective conduit that alters decision-making. When anticipatory feelings are strongly positive, individuals demonstrate higher willingness to commit to advance purchases, exhibit reduced price sensitivity during pre-order windows, and display greater overall resilience against the subjective friction of delivery wait times.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale is rooted in modern behavioral decision theory, affective forecasting, and cognitive appraisal theories of emotion. Its primary intellectual foundations draw from the following theoretical traditions:

Loewenstein's Anticipatory Utility Theory

The foundational bedrock of this measurement is George Loewenstein's (1987) landmark theory of anticipatory utility. In standard discounted utility models (Samuelson, 1937), delay uniformly degrades the present value of consumption because individuals discount future rewards exponentially or hyperbolically. Loewenstein challenged this assumption by demonstrating that utility does not flow solely from actual consumption; rather, individuals derive significant utility in the present period from imagining future consumption (savoring) or disutility from imagining future adversity (dread). In famous experimental demonstrations, Loewenstein showed that participants were frequently willing to pay more to delay a kiss from a favorite celebrity for several days rather than receive it immediately, solely to prolong the pleasurable state of anticipation. The Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale serves as a direct operationalization of this savoring component within empirical empirical modeling.

Affective Forecasting and Mental Simulation

A complementary theoretical anchor resides in the literature on affective forecasting and episodic future thinking (Gilbert & Wilson, 2007; Schacter et al., 2007). When people consider future events, they engage in mental simulation, projecting themselves into the future and previewing sensory and emotional details. Because mental simulations are inherently schematic, individuals tend to focus on the most salient, idealized, and pleasurable features of the upcoming consumption experience while omitting mundane or irritating logistical details. Consequently, the anticipatory representation of an event is often cleaner, more intense, and emotionally more rewarding than the actual consumption experience itself. The scale captures the positive emotional resonance generated by these optimistic mental simulations in real time.

The Savoring Framework in Positive Psychology

From the perspective of positive psychology, the construct reflects the proactive savoring strategies identified by Bryant and Veroff (2007). Bryant conceptualized savoring as a multidimensional process involving past (reminiscing), present (savoring the moment), and future (anticipating) temporal horizons. Anticipatory savoring involves deliberate cognitive elaboration: generating rich mental imagery, engaging in behavioral countdowns, and sharing plans with social peers. The Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale operationalizes the immediate emotional harvest reaped from these anticipatory savoring mechanisms.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale was rigorously established through the multistage experimental and survey designs conducted by Mukherjee, Smith, and Burton (2023). Their validation process incorporated diverse consumer samples and tested the construct against theoretical benchmarks to confirm construct, convergent, predictive, and discriminant validity.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity was confirmed through strong, statistically significant correlations with theoretical covariates across multiple pre-order product categories (e.g., consumer electronics, entertainment media, and personal goods). Positive anticipatory feelings demonstrated robust, positive associations with:

• Pre-order Product Evaluations: Participants who reported elevated scores on the scale consistently evaluated upcoming products more favorably across cognitive and affective dimensions (typical path coefficients ranging from $\beta = .45$ to $.68$, $p < .001$).
• Pre-order Choice and Purchase Intentions: In direct choice experiments comparing immediate purchase options against pre-order alternatives offering promotional incentives, higher positive anticipatory feelings mediated the positive impact of promotional framing on final pre-order adoption choices.
• Product Involvement and Desirability: The scale exhibited strong convergent validity with measures of perceived product premiumness and consumer category involvement, supporting the theoretical proposition that higher intrinsic desirability amplifies anticipatory emotional dividends.

Discriminant Validity

Crucially, the scale demonstrated sharp empirical separation from conceptually related constructs:

• Generic Positive Affect: Using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), Mukherjee et al. demonstrated that positive anticipatory feelings did not load onto a general positive mood factor; rather, items specifically loaded onto a distinct, prospective-focused latent variable. Generic positive affect did not account for variance in pre-order behavior once positive anticipatory feelings were controlled.
• Consumption Utility (Outcome Value): The scale was statistically differentiated from expected post-delivery utility. While expected consumption utility reflects cognitive appraisals of product performance upon receipt, positive anticipatory feelings accounted for unique, incremental variance in consumer decision models, satisfying the Fornell-Larcker criterion for discriminant validity (average variance extracted exceeding shared variance with related constructs).
• Impatience and Waiting Frustration: The scale correlated negatively or orthogonally with measures of state impatience, confirming that the scale captures positive savoring rather than negative temporal distress.

Predictive and Nomological Validity

In structural equation modeling (SEM) and moderated mediation analyses, Mukherjee et al. (2023) established the nomological validity of the scale by proving that positive anticipatory utility functions as a key causal mediator. Specifically, when consumers are exposed to price promotions on pre-ordered goods, the promotional benefit stimulates elevated anticipatory feelings, which subsequently drives consumer commitment and enhances post-choice satisfaction before the product is physically received.

8. Reliability

The reliability of the Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale has been consistently documented across empirical research iterations, demonstrating exemplary internal consistency despite its compact three-item length.

Internal Consistency Reliability

Across the pilot study and the multiple formal experimental studies reported in Mukherjee, Smith, and Burton (2023), the internal consistency coefficients consistently exceeded the standard psychometric cutoff of .70 and the stringent benchmark of .80 recommended for basic and applied research (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994):

• Study 1: Cronbach's alpha ($lpha$) was reported at $.92$, reflecting exceptional inter-item correlation and uniform construct representation.
• Study 2: Cronbach's alpha reached $.94$, with composite reliability ($CR$) estimated at $.94$ and average variance extracted ($AVE$) well above $.80$.
• Pilot Investigations: Preliminary testing with varied target products yielded Cronbach's alphas consistently ranging between $.89$ and $.93$.

Inter-Item and Item-Total Correlations

Detailed psychometric inspection reveals corrected item-to-total correlations consistently exceeding $.75$ across all three items, with no single item demonstrating idiosyncratic variance or detrimental effects on the composite reliability. The inter-item correlation coefficients typically range between $.72$ and $.85$, confirming that while the items share substantial common variance, they are sufficiently balanced to avoid severe item redundancy while preserving high conceptual precision.

9. Factor Analysis

The dimensionality of the Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale has been scrutinized via both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) within structural equation modeling frameworks.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Initial principal components and maximum likelihood exploratory factor extractions conducted across validation datasets revealed an unambiguous single-factor structure:

• Eigenvalues and Scree Test: The primary factor yielded an initial eigenvalue substantially greater than $2.40$, accounting for over $82%$ of the total variance across items. The second extracted component exhibited eigenvalues well below $0.35$, yielding a distinct scree plot elbow that decisively confirms unidimensionality.
• Factor Loadings: Standardized EFA factor loadings for the three items were exceptionally high, uniformly surpassing $.85$ without problematic cross-loadings onto secondary substantive dimensions.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

To confirm structural integrity when embedded in multi-construct measurement models (alongside variables such as perceived promotional savings, product evaluations, and behavioral purchase intentions), CFA was executed using maximum likelihood estimation. The single-factor specification of the Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale exhibited outstanding model fit:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): $> .99$
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): $> .98$
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): $le .02$
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): $le .05$ (with $90%$ confidence intervals encompassing zero)

All standardized factor loadings ($lambda$) were statistically significant ($p < .001$) and robust across cohorts, typically registering at:

• Item 1 ("Waiting for this product…"): $lambda = .88$ to $.91$
• Item 2 ("Thinking about receiving this product…"): $lambda = .90$ to $.94$
• Item 3 ("Looking forward to receiving this product…"): $lambda = .89$ to $.93$

The resulting Average Variance Extracted ($AVE$) consistently surpassed $.80$, substantially outperforming the recommended threshold of $.50$ and confirming that the scale possesses strong convergent measurement properties without residual structural distortion.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational characteristics and administration specifications of the Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale are detailed below:

• Construct Assessed: Positive anticipatory feelings (anticipatory utility and momentary savoring of an impending acquisition/consumption event).
• Instrument Type: Self-administered psychometric rating scale / subjective questionnaire.
• Number of Items: 3 items.
• Response Format: 7-point Likert scale:
  • $1$ = Strongly disagree
  • $2$ = Disagree
  • $3$ = Somewhat disagree
  • $4$ = Neither agree nor disagree
  • $5$ = Somewhat agree
  • $6$ = Agree
  • $7$ = Strongly agree
• Target Population: Consumers, adult decision-makers, and research participants participating in behavioral economics, psychological, or marketing studies.
• Administration Time: Less than 1 minute (approximately 20–45 seconds).
• Scoring and Indexing Procedures:
  • No items are reverse-scored; all statements are framed in a positive affective direction.
  • The overall Positive Anticipatory Feelings index is computed by calculating the arithmetic mean of all three items: $\text{Positive Anticipatory Feelings} = \frac{\text{Item 1} + \text{Item 2} + \text{Item 3}}{3}$.
  • Possible composite scores range from $1.00$ to $7.00$, with higher scores indicating greater intensity of positive anticipatory feelings and savoring.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Positive Anticipatory Feelings scale was formally published in 2023 in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science by authors Amaradri Mukherjee, Ronn J. Smith, and Scot Burton. The scale items, theoretical framework, and psychometric validation data appear in the open academic literature under the publication titled "The Effect of Positive Anticipatory Utility on Product Pre-order Evaluations and Choices."

Licensing and Usage: The scale is available free of charge for non-commercial academic, educational, and clinical research purposes under standard academic fair-use guidelines, provided appropriate scholarly attribution and bibliographic citation are given to Mukherjee, Smith, and Burton (2023). Commercial entities, market research firms, or proprietary digital platforms intending to incorporate the scale into commercial diagnostic software or profit-generating applications should consult the original authors and the copyright holder (Springer Nature / Academy of Marketing Science) for formal licensing clearances.

12. References

• Bryant, F. B., & Veroff, J. (2007). Savoring: A new model of positive experience. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.
• Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D. (2007). Prospection: Experiencing the future. Science, 317(5843), 1351–1354. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1144161
• Loewenstein, G. (1987). Anticipation and the valuation of delayed consumption. The Economic Journal, 97(387), 666–684. https://doi.org/10.2307/2232929
• Loewenstein, G., Weber, E. U., Hsee, C. K., & Welch, N. (2001). Risk as feelings. Psychological Bulletin, 128(2), 267–286. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.127.2.267
• Mukherjee, A., Smith, R. J., & Burton, S. (2023). The effect of positive anticipatory utility on product pre-order evaluations and choices. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 51(3), 551–569. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-022-00911-0
• Nunnally, J. C., & Bernstein, I. H. (1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
• Samuelson, P. A. (1937). A note on measurement of utility. The Review of Economic Studies, 4(2), 155–161. https://doi.org/10.2307/2967612
• Schacter, D. L., Addis, D. R., & Buckner, R. L. (2007). Remembering the past to imagine the future: The prospective brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 8(9), 657–661. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn2213

13. Items of the Scale (Questionnaire)