The emotional texture of consumer environments: A systematic approach to atmospherics

JOURNAL OF

ELSEVIER Journal of Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523

The emotional texture of consumer environments: A systematic approach to atmospherics

Gordon R. Foxall 1

Research Centre for Consumer Behaoiour, Department of Commerce, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK

Received 1 May 1996

Abstract

Mehrabian and Russell (1974) (An Approach to Environmental Psychology. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA) claim that the emotional texture of environments can be captured by measures of pleasure, arousal, and dominance. Applications to consumer environments have produced mixed results because researchers have lacked a systematic, theory-consistent classification of consumer environments, and have therefore chosen test situations on an ad hoc basis. It is argued that the behavioural perspective model (bpm) provides such a classification. In this exploratory study, students (N = 27) responding to eight consumer environments selected by the systematic application of this model yielded data for emotional reactions, and approach/avoidance in 216 consumer situations. Results support the adoption of a systematic theoretical framework for the analysis of consumer contexts and substantiate the predictive validity of the bpm. © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.

PsyclNFO classification: 3940

JEL classification: M31

Keywords: Consumer environment; Affect; Situational influence; Consumer theory

i Tel.: +44 121 414 3419; fax: +44 121 414 6707; e-mail: [email protected].

S0167-4870/97/$17.00 © 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PHSO 1 6 7 - 4 8 7 0 ( 9 7 ) 0 0 0 2 1 -4

506 G.R. Foxall I Journal of Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523

1. Introduction

Atmospherics are the means by which a consumption environment engen- ders emotional reactions in customers, encouraging them to stay in the setting, browse, evaluate and purchase; or, discouraging any of these activities. Atmospherics are facets of environmental design which influence consumer behaviour by creating attention, by communicating a store image and level of service to potential buyers, and by stimulating affective responses (Kotler, 1974).

The prospect of discovering how atmospherics specifically influence consumer behaviours in situ has led to several empirical studies uniting marketing concerns with techniques drawn from environmental psychology. Donovan and Rossiter (1982), for instance, used an approach to environmental psychology devised by Mehrabian and Russell (1974) to measure the affective impact of environments, and drew conclusions about the power of consumer environments to influence instore behaviour through design.

The present study attempts to transcend the ad hoc approach to the selection of consumer environments which has characterised some previous research in this area by employing a systematic, theoretically grounded classification of consumer situations derived from the behavioural perspective model (Foxall, 1990). The application of Mehrabian and Russell's meth- odology to consumer situations which exemplify this classification produces more coherent and practical results.

2. Mehrabian and Russell's environmental psychology

Mehrabian and Russell (1974) propose that individuals' emotional responses to an environment can be described by three variables: pleasure, arousal and dominance. In their approach, pleasure is measured by respondents' verbal assessments of their responses to environments as:

HAPPY as opposed to UNHAPPY PLEASED as opposed to ANNOYED SATISFIED as opposed to UNSATISFIED CONTENTED as opposed to MELANCHOLIC HOPEFUL as opposed to DESPAIRING RELAXED as opposed to BORED

G.R. Foxall I Journal of Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523 507

Arousal is verbally assessed as the extent to which respondents report feeling:

STIMULATED as opposed to RELAXED EXCITED as opposed to CALM F R E N Z I E D as opposed to SLUGGISH JITTERY as opposed to DULL WIDE-AWAKE as opposed to SLEEPY AROUSED as opposed to UNAROUSED

Finally, dominance is indicated by respondents' reported feelings of being:

CONTROLLING as opposed to CONTROLLED INFLUENTIAL as opposed to I N F L U E N C E D IN CONTROL as opposed to CARED-FOR IMPORTANT as opposed to AWED D O M I N A N T as opposed to SUBMISSIVE AUTONOMOUS as opposed to GUIDED.

These three responses mediate more overt consumer behaviours such as a desire to affiliate with others in the setting, desire to stay in or escape from the setting, and willingness to spend money and consume (Mehrabian, 1979; Mehrabian and Riccioni, 1986; Mehrabian and de Wetter, 1987; Mehrabian and Russell, 1975; Donovan and Rossiter, 1982; Russell and Mehrabian, 1976, 1978). Russell and Mehrabian (1976) speculate that such aspects of consumer behaviour as desire to purchase, increase with the pleasantness of the setting and, since arousal has a curvilinear relationship with approach behaviour, that desire is maximised in settings which evoke an intermediate level of arousal.

Insofar as optimal arousal rate increases with the pleasantness of the setting, consumer environments are likely to promote maximal levels of consumer approach when both variables are simultaneously increased (Donovan and Rossiter, 1982). The corollary is that an unpleasant consumer environment would achieve its maximal potential effect in evoking positive consumer response through a reduction in its capacity to arouse (Russell and Mehrabian, 1976). The required manipulation of the arousing quality of a consumer environment depends upon the responsiveness of each of the elements of arousing settings to control. Drawing upon information theory, Mehrabian and Russell (1974) demonstrate that the arousing quality of an environment correlates highly with its information rate, which increases

508 G. IL Foxall I Journal of Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523

with the novelty, complexity, intensity, unfamiliarity, improbability, change, mobility or uncertainty of the setting.

3. Prior research in consumer environments

The use of Mehrabian and Russell's approach in consumer research has produced mixed results. Lutz and Kakkar (1975a, b), who employed verbal descriptions of consumer behaviour settings, were disappointed in their ex- pectation that the three primary emotional reactions would be consistently related to consumer behaviour. However, the range of consumer behaviour settings employed in that study was both small and chosen on an ad hoe basis: respondents reacted to descriptions of 'one general and one snack situation'. It is hardly surprising that these authors conclude that 'Despite the increase in explanatory power resulting from the use of the pleasure, arousal and dominance variables, it is evident that the situation in and o f itself is not a powerful predictor of consumer behaviour' (Lutz and Kakkar, 1975a, b; em- phasis in original).

Donovan and Rossiter (1982) found positive associations between pleasure and arousal (but not dominance), on one hand, and respondents' intentions to remain in the setting and to spend money, on the other. However, despite using student participants in actual settings, this study embraced only a small range of consumer environments (each respondent reacted to two or three retail contexts), and the investigation was not grounded in a coherent theoretical basis in either its selection of consumer behaviour settings for comparison or its generation of hypotheses to be tested.

The lack of empirical evidence for the role of dominance in consumer environments is borne out by a study by Greenland and McGoldrick (1994) who report associations between pleasure and arousal and customers' ratings of traditional and modern bank designs but not for the third of Mehrabian and Russell's emotional variables. The failure to find a role for dominance might have been predictable given the single type of consumer setting used in each of these studies. Russell and Mehrabian (1976) themselves did not suggest how the dominance element of environments might affect consumer behaviour. Moreover, the version of this approach to environmental psychology advanced by Russell and Pratt (1980) eliminates this variable.

What is most obviously lacking in previous research is a systematic theory of how situations are structured and thus a means of predicting differences among them in terms of the behavioural responses of their participants. Re-

G.P~ Foxall I Journal of Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523 509

searchers appear to have generated settings on a random and intuitive basis and/or limited to a narrow range of consumer experience. The lack of an a priori understanding of the nature of consumer situations is problematical for either the experimental prediction (for which Donovan and Rossiter call) or for statistical investigations based on correlational analysis. Mehrabian and Russell themselves go so far as to claim that a situation that evokes a strong pleasure reaction in respondents is a 'pleasure situation' - a somewhat circular method of dealing with the structural properties of settings which evoke particular emotional reactions.

Designed to overcome these difficulties, the present investigation was based on the systematic theory of consumer situations, the behavioural perspective model (Foxall, 1990) in an attempt to predict consumers' verbal responses to a coherently selected range of consumer behaviour settings among which hypothesised relationships can be tested using Mehrabian and Rus- sell's approach to environmental psychology.

4. The behaviourai perspective model 2

According to the behavioural perspective model (bpm), approach and avoidance behaviours, as well as emotional responses are predictable from two dimensions of situational influence: the scope of the consumer behaviour setting, and the utilitarian and informational reinforcement signalled by the setting and inherent in the consumer's learning history.

4.1. Consumer behaviour setting scope

The model arrays the settings in which consumer behaviour occurs, such as a supermarket, railway station or bank, on a continuum from closed to open. Relatively closed behaviour settings are those in which the circumstances of purchase and consumption are managed largely by persons or organizations other than the consumer (who are not themselves subject to the contingencies) and which encourage conformity to the behaviour programme ongoing in the setting (Barker, 1968; Schwartz and Lacey, 1988). The physical and

2 Foxall (1990, 1994, 1996a, 1997b) has described the model in detail and it will be summarized here. Justification for the current interest in such variables as the scope of the consumer behaviour setting, and utilitarian and informational reinforcement, as well as the selection of the 8 situational descriptors used in the study, can be found in those sources.

510 G.I~ Foxall I Journal of Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523

social surroundings which the consumer enters are discriminative stimuli which are particularly amenable to the achievement of such control (Wicker, 1979). Banks, for instance, are arranged to maximize the orderly queuing by consumers and to minimize extraneous behaviour patterns not connected with the efficient execution of current transactions. But a degree of closure may also be achieved symbolically as when a consumer feels under social pressure to purchase a birthday present to repay a close relative's generosity; the source of closure here is the social rules which prescribe moral or material rewards for such reciprocity and, possibly, punishments for ignoring others' generosity. Closed settings are usually characterised, therefore, by negatively reinforced behaviour.

A relatively open consumer behaviour setting is one from which such physical, social and verbal pressures are largely absent or in which their influence is less obviously traced and the customer is relatively free to arrange or choose among the contingencies or determine his or her own rules for choos- ing among the products and brands on offer. An example is prepurchase behaviour for luxurious and innovative products: while social and other contextual influences are present, the consumer has discretion over which stores to visit, which products to examine and, if a purchase occurs, which particular product versions and brands to select. Behaviour in open settings is usually positively reinforced.

Behaviour settings also perform the function of informing consumers of the probable consequences of their current behaviours - the reinforcing and/or punishing outcomes of purchase (or nonpurchase) and consumption. In affluent, consumer-oriented economies, marked by high levels of discre- tionary income, open settings are commonplace and consumer choice is sus- tained by competition among providers. In economies and economic sectors characterized by production orientation, or monopolistic control, consumers have less discretion (Foxall, 1990).

4.2. Patterns of reinforcement L.

Reinforcement in humans takes two forms (Wearden, 1988; cf. Foxall, 1990, 1996a). The first is the utilitarian reinforcement customarily assumed by behaviour analysis, which focuses on the practical consequences of behaviour (i.e. functional benefit - the utility or economic/practical satisfaction received by consumers as a result of purchasing, owning or consuming). The model also incorporates informational reinforcement which is feedback on the level of performance of the consumer. It may take the form of a better


understanding of how well he or she is currently doing as a consumer or, more significantly, it may be the level of achievement or social status con- ferred by purchasing and consuming, and especially being seen to consume certain luxury and innovative products and services. Utilitarian and informational reinforcements usually occur together but are conceptualized as independent influences on consumer choice; each can be high or low relative to the other or to itself at other times.

Remote consequences, too small, too delayed or too improbable to affect behaviour immediately and directly, may rely upon verbal rules to act as discriminative stimuli, outlining the likely outcomes of behaving or failing to be- have in specified ways, and providing motivation to act appropriately (Malott, 1989; see also Foxall, 1997a).

4.3. The consumer situation

The model is summarised in Fig. 1. The meaning of the behaviour which is emitted in those circumstances is uniquely a product of the interaction between the discriminative stimuli that comprise the behaviour setting and the individual's history of reinforcement and punishment in similar settings (Foxall, 1990). Consumer behaviour can, therefore, be contextualized in a manner absent from cognitive consumer research in which the mainsprings of overt behaviour are sought in intrapersonal information processing. The BPM locates the consumer's behaviour at the intersection of his or her learning history and the current behaviour setting. These coordinates define the consumer situation, a device which explains consumer behaviour by locating it in space and time.

The matrix of contingency categories shown in Fig. 2 is thus uniquely equipped as a starting point for a systematic investigation of Mehrabian

CONSUMER [ BENAVZOUR gETTING

C~SUMER • nzu~vzova I

[CQM'SUHIm" S

I HISTORY Fig. 1. The behavioural perspective model.

UTZLITARZAN REINFORCEN~.

IHFORHATICmAL REINFORaBfl~FE


R m ~ w o ~ u T r ~ s e o n

ACCOMPLISWU~T

( h i g h utilitarian, h i g h informational)

B~D0mZSII

( h i g h utilitarian, low infor~Itional)

ACCUXULATI011

(low utilitarian, high informatlonal)

X~Z~-zxa~tRCE

(low utilitarian, low informational)

C l o s e d Open

Contlngency Category 2

F U L F I ~

Contingent/ Category 4

INESCAPABLE E~I'~TAINIIImT/ AIIZLIORATI~

Contlngeney Category 6

TOKEN - BASED C0118UMPTI011

Contlngen~/ Category 8

MANDATORY C011SUI~TZ01f

Contingency Category 1

STATUS C0~SUIIPTI~

Contlngency Category 3

POPULAR ENTERTAINXEIIT

C o n t i n g e n ~ T C a t e g o r y 5

COLLECTING

C o n t i n g e n c y C a t e g o r y 7

ROUTZIql Z ~ R C L ~ ~ G

Fig. 2. Contingency category matrix.

and Russell's approach to environmental psychology in the consumer behaviour field. Four general classes of consumer behaviour are defined by the relative levels of utilitarian and informational (briefly, social status and self-esteem related) reinforcement which maintains them; they are Accom- plishment, Hedonism, Accumulation and Maintenance (Foxall, 1992). These classes are subdivided according to the relative openness of the setting in


which the consumer behaviours take place. In terms of a functional analysis, the matrix thus comprises an exhaustive range of consumer situations defined in terms of environmental contingencies. Testing Mehrabian and Russell's analytical framework across this spectrum of consumer situations is, therefore, likely to provide a rigorous examination of its explicatory properties among consumer behaviour settings.

Foxall (1994) proposed that pleasure would increase with the utilitarian reinforcement of consumer situations. The reasoning behind this can now be elaborated. Given the way in which utilitarian reinforcement has been portr- ayed as consisting in economic, instrumental benefits, what verbal behaviour would we expect such behavioural consequences to give rise to? The verbal responses which Mehrabian and Russell (1974) describe as indicative of pleasure seem appropriate. The factor which they label 'pleasure' could as well be nominated 'satisfaction' which accords entirely with the nature of utilitarian reinforcement (Foxall, 1995).

It was also proposed by Foxall (1994) that dominance would increase with the openness of consumer behaviour settings, that is, the extent to which behaviour in the setting is under the control of the consumer rather than some other agent such as marketing managers (cf. Mehrabian and Russell, 1975). Hence the verbal behaviour characteristic of experiencing open vs. closed consumer behaviour settings are plausibly those associated with dominance as operationally defined and measured by Mehrabian and Russell (1974).

Finally, the possibility has been raised (FoxaU, 1994) that arousal, as a measure of the information rate of the environment, would be a predictable emotional response to informational reinforcement (Mehrabian, 1977). The verbal responses which Mehrabian and Russell claim as indicative of arousal thus appear to be those likely to result from consumers' experience of informational reinforcement, at least in as much as it relates to the physical environment.

This is not to equate these emotional responses with the structural compo- nents of the bpm: it is a means of formulating predictions with respect to the kinds of emotional response most likely to be encountered in consumer situations located within each of the contingency categories proposed by the model. The predicted verbal statements with respect to emotional reactions are formulated independent of the structural dimensions of the bpm.

Another methodological modification arises from consideration of how approach and avoidance should be conceptualised and measured. Ap- proach-avoidance was measured by Mehrabian and Russell (1974) and Rus- sell and Mehrabian (1978) as a single, bidimensional construct. However,


there is reason to believe that approach and avoidance do not constitute a single dimension of consumer behaviour. Alhadeff (1982) points out that consumer behaviour in any given situation is the outcome of two opposing learning histories: the strength of approach is a function of the individual's learning history with respect to prior approach behaviour and their consequences, while the strength of avoidance/escape is a function of his or her history with respect to prior avoidance/escape responses and their consequences. The strength of consumer behaviour is, therefore, a vector quantity which cannot be represented psychometrically by a single continuum from escape/ avoidance to approach (Foxall, 1990). As a result, each of these behavioural tendencies needs to be separately measured and assessed in relation to the structure of the situations in which it occurs (i.e., consumer behaviour setting scope and the pattern of reinforcement).

5. Propositions and hypotheses

The empirical research examined the propositions that pleasure, arousal and dominance would each exert independent influences upon approach (P1) and avoidance (P2) responses, respectively, in consumer behaviour settings representing the contingency category (CC) matrix of the BPM.

H 1: Pleasure will be significantly higher for response associated with consumer situations maintained by high levels of utilitarian reinforcement than for those maintained by relatively low levels of utilitarian reinforcement.

Arousal, reflecting the information rate of the environment, was assumed to include informational reinforcement (without being coterminous with it). Hence

H2: Arousal will be higher in those operant classes of consumer behaviour characterised by relatively high levels of informational reinforcement, namely Accomplishment and Accumulation. H3: Dominance will be higher in those consumer situations which allow a relatively high degree of control over the environmental contingencies by consumers rather than by others such as marketing managers (i.e., which are relatively open).

G. R Foxall I Journal o f Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523 515

6. Method

6.1. Sample and procedure

The sample consisted of 27 consumer behaviour senior university students who rated each of 8 consumer situations derived from the model (Table 1) on the following measures, providing data on 216 consumer situations. Partici- pation was not a course requirement; respondents were recompensed for their time and effort by a small monetary reward (£5). 3

6.2. Measures

Pleasure, arousal and dominance were measured by Mehrabian and Rus- sell's unmodified scales, each of which consists of six items in terms of which the environment in question is rated on nine-point scales separating the bipo- lar descriptors shown in Section 2. Responses to each of these scales ~ere scored from 1 (maximal displeasure/minimal stimulation/least dominance) to 9 (maximal pleasure/maximal stimulation/maximal dominance); this yielded a range of measurement for each emotional response from 6 to 54.

Approach and avoidance were measured by six of Mehrabian and Russell's eight statements for these items (those on thinking out a difficult task and working in the situation were deemed inappropriate to consumer behaviour). Selected statements were, for approach: 'How much time would you like to

3 In a pretest, students placed the eight consumer behaviour settings investigated here on a continuum of closed-open behaviour setting scope. Descriptions of these settings were embedded among a further ten in order to reduce the possibility of respondents' remembering the predicted scope of each of the eight from their reading. The results confirmed the consensual availability of the closed-open behaviour setting dimension among investigators by establishing generally-agreed, discrete behaviour setting continua for each of the operant classes of consumer behaviour identified by the bpm: accomplishment, hedonism, accumulation and maintenance.

A second pretest required students to allocate the eight descriptions of consumer behaviour settings among the contingency categories indicated in Fig. 2. This was achieved with a high degree of consensual agreement: Kendall's coefficient of concordance, W, for the judge's ranking of the original eight consumer situations = 0.9. Since there were more than 7 judges, a test of the null hypothesis that there is no agreement among the judges can be made: chi-square with k - 1 degrees of freedom = k(n - I) W, where k = the number of judges, N = the number of items to be judged, and W = Kendall's coefficient of concordance. Observed chi-square = 112.14 compared with a critical value of chi-square with 7 degrees of freedom of 20.28, two-tailed p < 0.01. The null hypothesis is therefore rejected. However, a more stringent test of agreement is given by the mean Spearman rank-order correlation among the judges' ratings, rs = 0.89, two-tailed p < 0.01.

Full details of the pretests are available in Foxall (1996b).

516 G.IL Foxall I Journal of Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523

Table 1 Descriptions of consumer situations

Contingency category Consumer situation Description

1 Luxury shopping

2 Gambling in Casino

3 Watching TV

4 In flight entertainment

5 Saving up

6 Frequent flier scheme

7 Grocery shopping

8 Paying taxes

You are wandering from department to department in a store such as Harrods, looking for an expensive treat for yourself which you feel you deserve and which you can well afford.

You are playing roulette in an exclusive casino. Many people around you are gambling and enjoying themselves.

You are watching a fast-moving entertainment program on TV: a sports program, a quiz show, a soap - whatever you often watch. You use your remote control to switch channels to see similar shows.

You are on a transatlantic flight, travelling economy class. You are reading an interesting book. The flight attendants close the blinds, subdue the lighting and announce that a movie is about to be shown.

You are saving up to buy a major item. Each week you deposit cash in your savings account. You have just received notice of the amount of interest to be added to your account.

You have just bought a number of items which you chose specifically because they confer frequent-flier points. You make a note of how close you are to getting your goal of a free flight.

You are doing your weekly grocery shopping in a large supermarket.

You are comparing the ex-VAT price with what you must actually pay for a consumer durable such as a home computer.

spend in this situation?' 'Once in this situation, how much would you enjoy exploring around?' 'To what extent is this a situation in which you would feel friendly and talkative to a stranger who happens to be near you?' and for avoidance: 'How much would you try to leave or get out of this situation?' 'How much would you try to avoid any looking around or exploration in this situation?' 'Is this a situation in which you might try to avoid other people, avoid having to talk to them?' Approach responses were scored from 1 (minimal approach tendency) to 7 (maximal approach tendency). Similarly, avoid-


ance responses were scored from 1 (minimal tendency to avoid/escape from the setting) to 7 (maximal tendency to avoid/escape).

6.3. Analysis

For P1 and P2, the relationship between the dependent and independent variables was examined by multiple regression analysis.

The hypotheses, specified a priori, were examined by means of t-tests. In addition, one-way ANOVA and Newman-Keuls procedures were employed in a posteriori examination of the data in order to explore the nature of any mean differences for independent and dependent variables among the contingency categories.

7. Results

7.1. Descriptive statistics

Means and standard deviations for the dependent variables (for Proposi- tion 1, approach; for Proposition 2, avoidance) and for the independent variables (pleasure, arousal and dominance, for both propositions) are shown in Table 2. The variables shown in Table 2 are also the subject of the hypotheses tested.

Table 3 presents the matrix of Pearson correlation coefficients among the dependent and independent variables. As expected, approach and avoidance are negatively related to each other; while approach is positively associated with all three emotional variables, avoidance is negatively related to these variables. Since Mehrabian and Russell claim that pleasure, arousal and dominance are orthogonal variables, the inter-correlations between pleasure and arousal, and pleasure and dominance were taken into consideration in the analysis of data.

7.2. Propositions

P1, which relates approach to emotional response, is supported. Multiple regression analysis reveals that, for approach, significant main effects were found for all three independent variables (F3,212 = 33.85, p = 0.000; R 2 = 0.32). For arousal, fl = 0.26, p = 0.0007; pleasure fl = 0.16,


Table 2 Means and standard deviations for dependent and independent variables

CC Pleasure Arousal Dominance Approach Avoidance

1 43.33 38.33 36.67 15.37 4.85 (7.84) (5.31) (6.03) (2.39) (3.40)

2 36.93 41.11 26.37 14.22 6.41 (6.35) (6.07) (6.63) (3.46) (3.97)

3 37.96 28.96 35.22 12.52 6.78 (7.33) (7.16) (8.21) (2.61) (3.70)

4 28.22 25.30 18.96 10.41 9.19 (9.70) (7.32) (5.23) (3.07) (3.32)

5 41.96 34.30 33.33 10.04 6.48 (7.77) (6.10) (9.29) (4.33) (5.42)

6 41.33 36.67 29.41 10.96 6.52 (5.82) (4.95) (6.82) (3.38) (4.26)

7 32.15 27.19 33.19 11.93 7.22 (8.18) (6.96) (9.07) (3.41) (5.01)

8 26.41 31.04 19.52 6.37 12.26 (6.34) (6.61) (5.36) (2.13) (3.73)

p = 0.0192; dominance fl = 0.29, p = 0.0000. No significant two- or three- way interaction was found.

P2, concerned with the relationship of avoidance to the three emotional variables identified by Mehrabian and Russell, is also supported. Multiple regression analysis indicates that, in the case of avoidance, F3,212 = 26.58, p = 0.0000; R2 = 0.27. However, whereas a significant main effect was found for pleasure ( f l = - 0 . 4 4 , p = 0 . 0 0 0 ) , none was apparent for arousal (fl = -0.11, p = 0.1204), or dominance (fl = -0.03, p = 0.6802). There was no significant interaction.

Table 3 Pearson correlation matrix

1 2 3 4 5

1. APPROACH - -0.64 0.50 0.36 0.47 2. AVOIDANCE - -0.51 -0.29 -0.35 3. PLEASURE - 0.52 0.53 4. AROUSAL - 0.25 5. DOMINANCE

G.R. Foxall I Journal of Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523

7.3. Hypotheses

519

The contingency categories (CCs) referred to in the following discussion of the results for the hypotheses have been defined in Fig. 2.

H1 is partially supported. The pleasure mean of CCs 1-4 which include high levels of utilitarian reinforcement (M = 36.61, SD = 9.50, N = 108) is higher than that of the remaining CCs (M = 35.46, SD = 9.58, N = 108) but not significantly: t with 214 df = 0.88, p = 0.19. However, one-way AN- OVA identified differences among several of the contingency category pleasure means (F7,208 = 19.83, p = 0 . 0 0 0 0 ) which are in line with the prediction. Means for CCs 4, 7 and 8 were all significantly lower than those for CCs 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 (p < 0.05).

H2 is accepted. The arousal mean for CCs 1, 2, 5 and 6, which are expected to involve high levels of informational reinforcement ( M = 3 7 . 6 0 , SD -- 6.09, N = 108) is significantly different from that of the remaining

CCs (M = 28.12, SD = 7.24, N = 108): t = 10.42, p = 0.000. One-way AN- OVA also indicates differences among the arousal means for the eight CCs which confirm the prediction (F7,208 = 21.21, p = 0.0000). The individual arousal means for CCs 1, 2, 5 and 6 all differ significantly from those for CCs 3, 4, 7 and 8 (p < 0.05).

H3 is accepted. The dominance mean of the relatively open settings (CCs 1, 3, 5 and 7) (M = 34.60, SD = 8.26, N = 108) significantly exceeds that of the relatively closed settings (M = 23.56, SD = 7.46, N = 108): t = 10.30, p = 0.000. This is confirmed by the ANOVA result (F7,208 = 24.43, p = 0.0000). The individual means for CCs 1, 3, 5 and 7 are all significantly higher than those for CCs 2, 4, 6 and 8 (p < 0.05).

8. Conclusions

All three independent variables - pleasure, arousal and dominance - have been shown for the first time to impact consumers' approach behaviour over a variety of consumption contexts. The role of dominance deserves particular ment ion in view of the failure of previous research to establish the role of this factor. The levels of intercorrelation between some of the independent variables (Table 3) are sufficiently high to implicate collinearity (Mason and Per- reault, 1991). Avoidance, however, is explained by the lack of pleasantness in a consumer setting: the implication is that an inherently unpleasant consumer

520 G.R Foxall I Journal of Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523

environment cannot be made more attractive by increasing dominance or arousal reactions.

The interpretive variables of the model have been shown to be predictive of consumers' verbal reports of their emotional reactions to specific consumer situations described by consumer behaviour setting scope and utilitarian/ informational reinforcement. Consumers' approach and avoidance responses in the situations so described are consistent with the theory; they and the pleasure, arousal, dominance and approach variables have been found predictable by consumer behaviour setting scope and the pattern of utilitarian and informational reinforcement. Hence each of the consumer situations studied appears to have its unique effect on consumers' emotional responses (Fig. 3).

Moreover, predictions based on the application of Mehrabian and Rus- sell's approach to environmental psychology to a coherent, theory-derived array of consumer situations have been supported, reinforcing the need in fu- ture to employ this technique within such a reasoned framework rather than haphazardly. Furthermore, the separate conceptualization and measurement of approach and avoidance has led to the finding that these behaviours are uniquely related to emotional response patterns.

A behaviour analytic account should stress that the responses under investigation are verbal', they must not be mistaken for the emotional responses which in the case of pleasure, arousal and dominance they purport to describe, nor for the actual consumer behaviours which in the case of approach and avoidance they profess to delineate. Whether these verbal responses are predictive of corresponding consumer behaviours in actual behaviour settings of the kind assumed for the study remains to be empirically demonstrated. Nev- ertheless, the findings are consistent with the view that such verbal behaviours may function as discriminative stimuli for overt responding (Foxall, 1990).

The findings reported above were produced for a small sample which is not, however, of an atypical size for research of this kind; nor was the range of consumer settings beyond the actual and vicarious learning histories of student respondents. Both Mehrabian and Russell's approach and the behavioural perspective model have been tested over 216 consumer situations, with positive results for both. Moreover, the preliminary findings from investigations involving the responses of several hundred 'ordinary' consumers with respect to some four thousand consumer situations, are corroborative of those presented in this paper.


s ~ w o v a s ~ - r ~ a stops C l o s e d Open

ACCCMPLISB~ENT

(high utilitarian, high informational}

I~DCNZSM

( h i g h utilitarian, low informational}

ACCUMULATZON

(low utilitarian, high informational)

iI[AINTE~AI~E

( low utilitarian, low informational )


FULFIV.WL~T

PLEASURE AROUSAL Doainance


INESCAPABLE ENTERTA~

PLEASURE Arousal Dominance


TOKIM - BASED CONSUMPTION

Pleasure AROUSAL Dominance


MANDATORY CONSUMPTION

Pleasure Arousal Dominance

Contingmncy Category 1

STATUS CONSUMPTION

PLEASURE AROUSAL DOMINANCE


POPULAR ENTERT~

PLEASURE Arousal DCEINANCE

Contingency Category S

COLLECTING AND SAVING

Pleasure AROUSAL DOMINANCE


ROUTINE PURCHASING

Pleasure Arousal D01INANCE

Key: Upper case e~otional responses = relatively high; lower case, relatively low.

Fig. 3. Summary of results for hypotheses 1-3: The pattern of emotional response to consumer situations.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful for helpful advice on earlier drafts to Professor A.L. Minkes, Balliol College, Oxford; Professor J. O'Shaughnessy, Columbia University;

522 G.I~ Foxall I Journal of Economic Psychology 18 (1997) 505-523

and Professor R.P. Bagozzi, University of Michigan; and to two anonymous referees.

Earlier versions of this paper were presented in September 1996 at the 21st Colloquium of the International Association for Research in Economic Psy- chology, Paris, and the 10th Annual Conference of the British Academy of Management, Birmingham, England. I am grateful to participants for their constructive comments.

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