Emotions significantly influence human behavior during decision-making. While lab evidence is abundant, field studies are limited, often with rough measures or temporal gaps between triggers and behavior. Using high-frequency beer sales, in-play match data, and betting odds in a soccer stadium, we study the immediate impact of emotional cues on alcohol consumption. We integrate the emotional constructs Surprise and Suspense, considering positive and negative states. Surprise consistently increases beer sales, suggesting alcohol consumption in emotionally charged situations. Suspense mainly reduces beer sales. The positive emotional state dominates over the negative one regarding effect sizes, offering evidence that “celebration beats frustration.

Research Line: Sports Consumer Behavior.

Funding / Support: Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC number 2064/1 – Project number 390727645. For further information, refer to Cluster of Excellence Machine Learning.

Principal Investigators: Tim Pawlowski, Augustin Kelava

Team members: Lukas Fischer, Michael Nagel

Publications:

• Celebration beats frustration: emotional cues and alcohol use during soccer matches. Available at SSRN.
• An alternative prior for estimation in high-dimensional settings. Published in Structural Equation Modelling.