Consumers Emotional Responses to Service Environments

Gordon R. Foxall
KEELE UNIVERSITY

Gordon E. Greenley
ASTON BUSINESS SCHOOL

Mehrabian and Russells (1974) approach to environmental psychology describes emotional responses to environments by measures of pleasure, arousal, and dominance. Research on consumer environments has generated mixed results, because it has lacked a theory-based classification of consumer environments; thus, test situations have been selected on an ad hoc basis. The paper employs the Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM) as an appropriate theoretical classification. Consumers (N 142) responding to eight service environments based on the application of this model yielded data for emotional reactions and approach/avoidance in 1,136 consumer situations. The results support the adoption of this theoretical framework for the contextual analysis of consumer behavior and substantiate the predictive validity of the BPM. J BUSN RES 1999. 46.149 158. 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

onsumers emotional responses to service environments are directly related to their willingness to spend time and money there, to browse, evaluate, and consume (Donovan, Rossiter, Marcoolyn, and Nesdale, 1994). Service providers, therefore, are centrally concerned with the design and management of atmospherics, those elements of service environments that influence affective reactions to place. The strategic importance of atmospherics lies in the capacity of these physical and social components of the service environment to hold consumers attention long enough for such aspects of service strategy as service level, organizational climate, and corporate image to be communicated effectively (Kotler, 1974). Several authors have reported studies of consumers emotional responses to retail environments that incorporate Mehrabian and Russells (1974) approach to environmental psychology (e.g., Kakkar and Lutz, 1975; Lutz and Kakkar, 1975a,b; Donovan and Rossiter, 1982; Golden and Zimmer,
Address correspondence to Gordon Foxall, Professor of Consumer Behaviour, Keele University, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK. Journal of Business Research 46, 149158 (1999) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010

1986; Buckley, 1987; Dawson, Bloch, and Ridgway, 1990; Donovan, Rossiter, Marcoolyn, and Nesdale, 1994; Greenland and McGoldrick, 1994). However, none to date has succeeded in fully implementing Mehrabian and Russells tripartite classification of affective reactions to environments, which includes pleasure, arousal, and dominance. Although some evidence has been found for the first two of these emotional dimensions of consumer response, results for dominance have been disappointing. One reason for this is the ad hoc manner in which consumer settings have been selected for test. In this paper, we report the successful implementation of Mehrabian and Russells (1974) framework for a series of consumer environments selected on the basis of a coherent theoretical approach to situational influence on consumer choice, the behavioral perspective model (Foxall, 1990). The results indicate that for this set of consumer situations, verbal measures of consumers approach and avoidance responses are predictable from measures of their reactions to environmental stimuli as pleasurable, arousing, and dominating. In addition, evidence is presented that consumers show contrasting emotional responses depending on the types of consumer situations suggested by the model.

The Psychology of Consumer Environments

Mehrabian and Russell (1974) employ measures of three variablespleasure, arousal, and dominanceto describe and measure individuals affective responses to an environment. Pleasure is indicated by respondents verbal assessments of their responses to environments as: happy as opposed to unhappy; pleased as opposed to annoyed; satisfied as opposed to dissatisfied; contented as opposed to melancholic; hopeful as opposed to despairing; and relaxed as opposed to bored. Arousal is verbally assessed as the extent to which respondents report feeling: stimuated as opposed to relaxed; excited
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as opposed to calm; frenzied as opposed to sluggish; jittery as opposed to dull; wide-awake as opposed to sleepy; and aroused as opposed to unaroused. Finally, dominance is indicated by respondents reported feelings of being: controlling as opposed to controlled; influential as opposed to influenced; in control as opposed to cared-for; important as opposed to awed; dominant as opposed to submissive; and autonomous as opposed to guided. These emotional responses are believed to mediate overt consumer behaviors including relating to others, staying in or escaping from the setting, and spending time and money there (Mehrabian, 1979; Mehrabian and Riccioni, 1986; Mehrabian and de Wetter, 1987; Mehrabian and Russell, 1975; Donovan and Rossiter, 1982; Russell and Mehrabian, 1976, 1978). Therefore, this approach to environmental psychology seems highly relevant to the concerns of service providers whose remit includes the design and management of the physical and social contexts in which purchase and consumption occur. However, the application of Mehrabian and Russells approach in consumer research has furnished somewhat ambiguous results. The earliest researchers in the consumer field, Lutz and Kakkar (1975a,b), were disappointed in their expectation that pleasure, arousal, and dominance would relate predictably to consumer behavior. The reason for their poor results seems to be that the scope of the consumer settings they employed was small and apparently was chosen arbitrarily. The participants in their study responded to verbal descriptions of one general and one snack situation. Lutz and Kakkar (1975a,b) 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 of itself is not a powerful predictor of consumer behavior (emphasis in original) (p. 148). In a later investigation, Donovan and Rossiter (1982) found positive associations between pleasure and arousal (but not dominance) and respondents intentions to remain in the setting and to spend money. However, despite obtaining responses from the student participants in actual settings, this study also examined only a small number of consumer environments, all of them retail settings, and the investigation was not founded on any explicit theoretical framework in either its choice of consumer behavior settings or the hypotheses it evaluated. In a follow-up study, Donovan, Rossiter, Marcoolyn, and Nesdale (1994) found evidence that pleasure is positively related to such aspects of consumer behavior as spending extra time in the store and overspending. They also report that arousal, which in the 1982 study of Donovan and Rossiter predicted potential overspending, no longer performed this role, but accounted for underspending in unpleasant store settings. Dominance has made a poor showing in investigations of the role of emotional mediators of consumer and other human behavior. Russell and Mehrabian (1976) themselves did not suggest how the dominance element of environments might effect consumer behavior. Moreover, the version of this ap-

proach to environmental psychology advanced by Russell and Pratt (1980) eliminates this variable. Understandably, therefore, Donovan, Rossiter, Marcoolyn, and Nesdale (1994) did not investigate its role in determining instore consumer behavior. Their attitude to the third of Mehrabian and Russells (1974) affective variables is reflected in a study by Greenland and McGoldrick (1994). These authors report associations between pleasure and arousal and customers ratings of traditional and modern bank designs but not for the third of Mehrabian and Russells emotional variables. The failure to find a role for dominance might have been predictable given the narrow range of consumer settings used in each of these studies. Previous research has lacked a theory-based typology of consumer situations and thus a means of predicting differences among such situations based on the likely behavioral responses of their participants. Researchers have generated settings on a random, convenience, or intuitive basis, and this has led to the consideration of only a narrow range of consumer experiences. Continued absence of any a priori comprehension of the structure of consumer situations will be troublesome for the realization of both the experimental prediction that Donovan and Rossiter (1982) propose and for survey investigations of situation-bound consumer behavior. The study described in this paper employed Mehrabian and Russells (1974) approach to environmental psychology but was based on a systematic theory of consumer situations, the Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM) (Foxall, 1990). Its purpose was to predict consumers verbal responses to a theory-grounded range of consumer behavior settings in order (1) to evaluate the predictability of approachavoidance from pleasure, arousal, and dominance, and (2) to test the predictive validity of the BPM itself.

The Behavioral Perspective Model

According to the BPM, approach and avoidance behaviors, as well as emotional responses, can be predicted from two elements of situational influence: (1) the scope of the consumer behavior setting: and (2) the pattern of utilitarian and informational reinforcement signalled by the setting and inherent in the consumers learning history. The model is summarized in Figure 1.

Consumer Behavior Setting Scope

The settings in which consumer behavior takes place, such as a corner shop, museum, or theme park, form a continuum from closed to open. In relatively closed behavior settings, purchase and consumption are managed largely by persons or organizations other than the consumer; such management encourages conformity to the behavior program ongoing in the setting (Barker, 1968; Schwartz and Lacey, 1988). Physical and social surroundings that the consumer encounters provide the discriminative stimuli by which a degree of control over consumer choice is achieved (Wicker, 1979). For example, retail banks are organized to promote orderly queuing by

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Figure 1. Outline Behavioral Perspective Model.

consumers and to minimize behavior that is unconnected with the efficient carrying out of transactions. Closure is also achieved symbolically; for example, when a consumer comes under social pressure to give a gift in order to repay a friends generosity; such closure is achieved through social rules that prescribe the rewards for such reciprocity and sanctions for ignoring others generosity. Hence, closed settings are characterized by negatively reinforced behavior. A relatively open consumer behavior setting lacks such strong physical, social, and verbal pressures to conform to a particular pattern of behavior. In this kind of setting, the consumer enjoys a degree of discretion over the physical and social contingencies, or can determine his or her own rules for choosing among the products and brands offered. Thus, in prepurchase browsing for luxurious and innovative products, although social and other contextual influences are certainly present, the consumer has considerable discretion over which stores to patronize, which products to consider, and, if he or she decides on making a purchase, the specific makes and brands to select. Behavior in open settings is usually positively reinforced. Behavior settings receive their control by informing consumers of the likely consequences of their potential behaviors the reinforcing and/or punishing outcomes of purchase (or nonpurchase) and consumption. In affluent, consumer-oriented economies, marked by high levels of discretionary income, open settings are frequently encountered, and consumer choice is sustained by competition among providers. In economies and economic sectors characterized by production orientation, or monopolistic control, consumers have less discretion.

the utility or economic satisfaction received by consumers as a result of purchasing, owning, or consuming. The second source of reinforcement is informational, consisting in feedback on the level of performance of the consumer. It may supply a clearer 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 conferred 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.

The Consumer Situation

The meaning of the behavior emitted by the consumer is a unique product of the interaction between the discriminative stimuli that comprise the behavior setting and the individuals history of reinforcement and punishment in similar settings (Foxall, 1990). As Figure 1 shows, consumer behavior occurs at the intersection of a learning history and the current behavior setting. These coordinates define the consumer situation, a device that explains consumer behavior by locating it in space and time. The matrix of contingency categories shown in Figure 2 provides a framework for a systematic investigation of Mehrabian and Russells (1974) approach to environmental psychology in the consumer behavior field. Four classes of consumer behavior are defined by the relative levels of utilitarian and informational reinforcement that maintains them: accomplishment, hedonism, accumulation, and maintenance (Foxall, 1992). These classes are subdivided according to the relative openness of the setting in which the consumer behaviors occur. The matrix functionally defines an exhaustive range of consumer situations based on environmental contingencies. Testing Mehrabian and Russells (1974) analytical framework

Patterns of Reinforcement
The reinforcement that regulates human consumer behavior has two sources (Wearden, 1988; cf. Foxall, 1990, 1996a). First is utilitarian reinforcement, which features the functional, practical, and useful consequences of behavior. It is akin to

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Figure 2. Contingency Matrix.

Category

across this spectrum of consumer situations is, therefore, likely to provide a rigorous examination of its explicatory properties among consumer behavior settings. Pleasure is expected to increase with the utilitarian reinforcement of consumer situations (see Foxall, 1994 for further exposition of this and the following propositions). Because utilitarian reinforcement consists in economic, instrumental benefits, it seems reasonable to assume that the verbal responses that Mehrabian and Russell (1974, p. 216) describe as indicative of pleasure are predictable consumer behaviors when confronted with settings high in utilitarian reinforcement. The factor labeled pleasure by Mehrabian and Russell (1974) could as well be called satisfaction, which accords entirely with the nature of utilitarian reinforcement (Foxall, 1995). Furthermore, dominance is expected to increase with the openness of consumer behavior settings, the extent to which behavior in the setting is under the control of the

consumer rather than some other agent, such as a marketing manager (cf. Mehrabian and Russell, 1975). Hence the verbal behavior characteristic of experiencing open versus closed consumer behavior settings are plausibly those associated with dominance as operationally defined and measured by Mehrabian and Russell (1974). Finally, arousal, as a measure of the information rate of the environment, should be a predictable emotional response to informational reinforcement (Mehrabian, 1977). The verbal responses that Mehrabian and Russell (1974) claim as indicative of arousal, thus, seem to be those likely to result from consumers experience of informational reinforcement, at least inasmuch as it relates to the physical environment. These three emotional responses remain analytically separate from the structural components of consumer situations (cf. Booth, 1991). Mehrabian and Russells (1974) measures of pleasure, arousal, and dominance present researchers with

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a means of formulating predictions of the verbal responses most probably made by consumers within each of the contingency categories proposed by the model (Figure 2). A methodological modification to Mehrabian and Russells (1974) approach emerges from consideration of how approach and avoidance should be conceptualized and measured. Approachavoidance has been measured (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974, 1975) as a single, bidimensional construct. However, approach and avoidance do not constitute a single dimension of consumer behavior. Alhadeff (1982) points out that consumer behavior in any given situation is the outcome of two opposing learning histories: the strength of approach is a function of the individuals learning history with respect to prior approach behavior and their consequences; whereas, 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 behavior is, therefore, a vector quantity that cannot be represented psychometrically by a single continuum from escape/avoidance to approach (Foxall, 1990). Hence, each of these behavioral tendencies must be separately measured and assessed in relation to the structure of the situations in which it occurs (i.e., consumer behavior setting scope and the pattern of reinforcement).

ite measure of approachavoidance. It is measured here as the net difference between approach and avoidance scores, and stands for a[pproach] minus a[voidance].) Hence, for the consumer situations described in Table 1: H1: Approach will be determined positively by pleasure, arousal, and dominance. H2: Avoidance will be determined negatively by pleasure, arousal, and dominance. H3: Aminusa will be determined positively by pleasure, arousal, and dominance. Three hypotheses of central interest to the models validity were also tested. Because pleasure is assumed to be a response indicating utilitarian satisfaction with owning or using economic products and services: H4: 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, is assumed to include informational reinforcement (without being coterminous with it). Hence, H5: Arousal will be higher in those operant classes of consumer behavior characterized by relatively high levels of informational reinforcement; namely, accomplishment and accumulation. Dominance reflects the degree to which the consumer feels controlled by physical and social surroundings of the consumption setting. Hence,

Hypotheses
An empirical study examined how far pleasure, arousal, and dominance would each influence approach, avoidance, and aminusa, the net difference between approach and avoidance, respectively, over a range of consumer behavior settings representing the contingency category (CC) matrix of the BPM. (Aminusa represents Mehrabian and Russells (1974) composTable 1. Descriptions of Consumer Situations Contingency Category 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Consumer Situation Luxury shopping Gambling in casino Watching television In-flight entertainment Saving Frequent-flier scheme Grocery shopping Paying taxes

Description You are wandering from department to department in a store such as Harrods, looking for an expensive treat for yourself that you feel you deserve and that 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 soapwhatever 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 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.

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H6: Dominance will be higher in those consumer situations in which consumers permit a relatively high degree of control over the environmental contingencies by consumers rather than by others such as marketing managers (i.e., relatively open).

Method
Sample and Procedure
The sample consisted of 142 consumers, recruited by a random walk method and interviewed by a professional market research firm throughout England, who rated each of eight consumer situations derived from the model (Table 1) on the following measures, providing data on 1,136 consumer situations. Respondents were recompensed for their time and effort by a small monetary reward (a Boots or Marks & Spencer voucher to the value of 5). Because of the on-the-spot checking by the market research firm, no questionnaires were rejected because of incompletion, although five (in addition to the 142 used for analysis) were unusable owing to response set bias.

Measures
Pleasure, arousal, and dominance were measured by Mehrabian and Russells (1974) 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 bipolar descriptors shown in section 2. Responses to each of these scales were 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 Russells eight statements for these items (those on thinking out a difficult task and working in the situation were deemed inappropriate to consumer behavior). Selected statements were, for approach: How much time would you like to 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, avoidance responses were scored from 1 (minimal tendency to avoid/escape from the setting) to 7 (maximal tendency to avoid/escape). Aminusa was measured as the mean difference between approach and avoidance for each individual; the feasible range was thus 21 21.

behavior setting scope. Descriptions of these settings were embedded among a further 10 in order to educe the possibility of respondents remembering the predicted scope of each of the eight from their reading. The results confirmed the consensual availability of the closedopen behavior setting dimension among investigators by establishing generally agreed, discrete behavior setting continua for each of the operant classes of consumer behavior identified by the BPM: accomplishment, hedonism, accumulation, and maintenance. A second pretest required students to allocate the eight descriptions of consumer behavior settings among the contingency categories indicated in Figure 2. This was achieved with a high degree of consensual agreement: Kendalls coefficient of concordance W for the judges ranking of the original eight consumer situations 0.9. Because there were more than seven 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-1)W, where k the number of judges, N the number of items to be judged, and W Kendalls coefficient of concordance. Observed chi-square 112.14 as compared with a critical value of chi-square with seven 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 rankorder correlation among the judges ratings, rs 0.89, twotailed p 0.01. (Foxall, 1996b). In a third pretest, two judges, asked about when they buy a product in a store, allocated each of the 18 pairs of antonyms derived from Mehrabian and Russells (1974) measures to one of three categories: (1) words describing their emotional reactions to the product benefits; (2) words describing their emotional reactions to the surroundings; and (3) words describing how much freedom to choose they had. The results indicated a significant degree of agreement between the judges: chi-square with 4 df 14.00, p 0.0073.

Analysis
H1H3 were examined by multiple regression analysis. The a priori hypotheses (H4H6) were tested by z tests. One-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey HSD procedures were used a posteriori to explore the mean differences for independent and dependent variables among the contingency categories.

Results
Descriptive Statistics
Means and standard deviations for the dependent and independent variables are shown in Table 2. 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; whereas, approach is positively associated with all three emotional variables, avoidance is negatively related to these variables. The intercorrelations among pleasure and arousal,

Pretests
In a pretest, 39 students placed the eight consumer behavior settings investigated here on a continuum of closedopen

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Table 2. Means (Standard Deviations) C 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Pleasure 44.27 (6.37) 40.18 (6.74) 41.42 (7.33) 34.57 (9.28) 34.40 (6.60) 34.49 (6.10) 29.75 (6.45) 28.45 (6.37) Arousal 39.35 (5.87) 41.10 (6.04) 30.45 (5.36) 26.09 (7.54) 38.50 (6.33) 38.73 (6.37) 27.17 (5.65) 30.30 (5.09) Dominance 36.50 (5.32) 29.37 (7.40) 35.46 (6.32) 23.77 (5.81) 36.70 (6.51) 32.44 (5.65) 33.80 (7.42) 23.69 (6.43) Approach 12.01 (3.11) 11.09 (4.26) 9.23 (3.39) 8.46 (3.62) 5.94 (3.75) 7.31 (3.69) 9.73 (3.52) 5.01 (3.09) Avoidance 6.48 (4.60) 7.33 (4.69) 9.22 (4.96) 9.63 (5.67) 9.92 (6.09) 8.25 (5.81) 7.68 (4.77) 11.54 (5.41) A-A 5.49 (6.41) 3.75 (7.96) .07 (6.79) .99 (7.82) 3.98 (8.25) .99 (7.96) 2.25 (7.03) 6.49 (7.43)

and pleasure and dominance are not sufficiently high to breach Mehrabian and Russells (1974) assumption of the orthogonality of these variables (Mehrabian and Russell 1974; cf. Mason and Perreault, 1991). Coefficient variance decomposition analysis was used to test for multicollinearity among the three independent variables. The highest of the four condition indices was 12.2, which is well below the threshold range of 1530 stipulated by Hair, Anderson, Tatham, and Black (1995). This analysis suggests that multicollinearity is not problematic.

4 individually exceed those for CCs 5, 6, 7, and 8 (p 0.05). H5: The arousal mean for CCs 1, 2, 5, and 6, which include high levels of informational reinforcement, significantly exceeds that of the remaining CCs (Table 5). One-way ANOVA also indicates differences among the arousal means for the eight CCs, which confirm the prediction (F7,1128 141.531, p 0.0000). Hence the arousal means for CCs 1, 2, 5, and 6 differ individually from those for CCs 3, 4, 7, and 8 (p 0.05). H6: Table 5 also shows that the dominance mean of the relatively open settings; i.e., CCs 1, 3, 5, and 7, significantly exceeds that of the relatively closed settings. This is confirmed by the ANOVA result (F7,1128 98.59, p 0.0000). The individual means for CCs 1, 3, 5, and 7 are significantly higher than those for CCs 2, 4, 6, and 8 (p 0.05).

Hypotheses
H1, H2, and H3 are supported. Table 4 shows that, for approach, avoidance and aminusa, significant main effects were found for all three independent variables. Whereas approach and aminusa are positively related to pleasure, arousal and dominance, the relationship is negative in the case of avoidance. The remaining hypotheses are also accepted. H4: Table 5 shows that the pleasure mean of CCs 14, which include high levels of utilitarian reinforcement, is significantly higher than that of the remaining CCs. Moreover, one-way ANOVA identified differences among the contingency category pleasure means (F7,1128 91.07, p 0.0000), which are in line with the prediction. Hence, means for CCs 1, 2, 3, and

Discussion and Conclusions

Early studies of the impact of the atmosphere and ambience of service environments on consumer behavior were limited in four respects. First, they were confined to student samples; second, they employed verbal descriptions of situations rather

Table 3. Pearson Correlation Matrix (n 1136; p .0000, in all cases) 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 Aminusa Approach Arousal Avoidance Dominance Pleasure 2 .8121 3 .2072 .1771 4 .8868 .4738 .1911 5 .2694 .2330 .2882 .2355 6 .3309 .3677 .2643 .2286 .3296

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Table 4. Results of Multiple Regressions Model Appr P A D Av P A D A A P A D 64.63 0.0000 0.15 0.25 0.09 0.16 0.0000 0.0012 0.0000 37.83 0.0000 0.09 0.15 0.11 0.16 0.0000 0.0004 0.0000 F3,1132 67.95 p 0.0000 Adjusted R2 0.15 0.32 0.06 0.11 0.0000 0.0336 0.0002 p

than exposing participants to actual consumer environments; third, they concentrated exclusively on retail environments; and, fourth, they lacked theoretical coherence, relying on arbitrarily invented situations rather than a range of conceptually linked environments. Donovan, Rossiter, Marcoolyn, and Nesdale (1994) impressively overcame two of these limitations by using actual consumers in real consumer settings. The present study has overcome three: (1) it employed actual consumers who responded to (2) several types of consumer situation that were (3) theoretically derived on the basis of the BPM. Earlier studies have drawn attention to the impact of some of the affective variables proposed by Mehrabian and Russell (1974) to describe environmentally derived affect. Most notably, the findings of those studies implicate pleasure, and less frequently arousal, as explicators of consumers emotional responses to environments. Our study shows that pleasure, arousal, and dominance explain consumers verbal expressions of approachavoidance over the range of BPM-generated service environments investigated. The s shown in Table 4 are
Table 5. Results of z Tests Approv Mean 1 (sd) Mean 2 (sd) Mean diff df z p N (m1) N (m2) 10.20 (3.90) 7.00 (3.94) 3.20 1134 13.79 0.0000 568 568 Avoid 8.17 (5.15) 9.35 (5.73) 1.18 1134 3.65 0.0000 568 568

small, but all are significant and in the predicted direction. Dominance deserves particular mention in view of the failure of previous research to establish a positive role for this factor. The relationships found between dominance and approach (positive), dominance and aminusa (positive), and dominance and avoidance (negative) appears because of the selection of a range of consumer situations based systematically on the BPM framework. The distinction between open and closed consumer behavior settings derived from the model would account for this. It emerges, further, that each of the consumer situations studied has a unique effect on consumers emotional responses, which may be unalterable given the purpose and behavior program of the setting. The research described above also vindicates the adoption of the BPM in environmental consumer research. The interpretive variables of the model have been shown to predict consumers verbal reports of their emotional reactions to specific consumer situations described by consumer behavior setting scope and utilitarian/informational reinforcement. Consumers approach, avoidance, and aminusa responses in the situations so described are consistent with the theory; they and the pleasure, arousal, dominance, and approach variables have been shown predictable by consumer behavior setting scope and the pattern of utilitarian and informational reinforcement. Moreover, predictions based on the application of Mehrabian and Russells environmental psychology to a coherent, theoryderived array of consumer situations have been supported, reinforcing the need in future to employ this technique within such a reasoned framework rather than haphazardly. Moreover, the separate conceptualization and measurement of approach and avoidance has led to the finding that these behaviors are uniquely related to emotional response patterns. Aminusa, which is Mehrabian and Russells (1974) composite measure of approachavoidance, seems expendable. Future research should seek to overcome the fourth limitation of early research by incorporating actual consumer settings. There are indications from the work of Mehrabian and Russell and Donovan, Rossiter, Marcoolyn, and Nesdale (1994) that pleasure, arousal, and dominance are effectively predictive of consumers more overt behaviors, but further

Aminusa 2.04 (7.73) 2.30 (8.33) 4.35 1134 9.11 0.0000 568 568

P 40.11 (8.28) 31.77 (6.92) 8.34 1134 18.41 0.0000 568 568

A 39.40 (6.24) 28.52 (6.29) 10.88 1134 29.25 0.0000 568 568

D 35.61 (6.52) 27.31 (7.38) 8.30 1134 20.09 0.0000 568 568

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empirical investigation is necessary to establish this for the range of situations based on the BPM approach. In the meantime, it is necessary to emphasize that the responses under investigation are verbal: they are not the emotional responses which in the case of pleasure, arousal, and dominance, they purport to describe; nor are they the actual consumer behaviors, which in the case of approach and avoidance, they profess to delineate. Whether these verbal responses are predictive of corresponding consumer behaviors in actual behavior settings of the kind assumed for the study remains to be empirically demonstrated. Nevertheless, the findings are, as yet, consistent with the view that such verbal behaviors may function as discriminative stimuli for overt responding (Foxall, 1990). An important question in this regard concerns the generalizability of the findings to service environments not considered here. Replications of the research reported in this paper, involving alternative sets of consumer situations for each of the eight contingency categories, indicate that the results have general scope for the elucidation of consumer choice in affluent societies (Foxall 1997a,b). The results establish that each of the functionally defined categories of consumer situation shown in the BPM contingency matrix (Figure 2) is associated with a unique configuration of consumer affect that can be expected to have an impact on consumers purchase and consumption of services in differing ways. The eightfold categorization shown in that figure is an exhaustive functional typology of consumer situations. The results suggest that the Mehrabian and Russell (1974) framework can, therefore, be made meaningful to all consumer environments categorized using the BPM variables. Nevertheless, the possibility remains that the model and the results it has generated are culturally restricted to affluent, marketing-oriented economies. There seems no reason why the matrix of contingency categories outlined in Figure 2 should not prove useful in the analysis of consumer behavior in a wide range of different cultures whose economies extend beyond the subsistence level and, thus, involve more than simple exchange. The particular content of the situations that fall within each category will need to be carefully chosen in accordance with the cultural norms of the society and economy under investigation. Status consumption of furniture in Elizabethan England, for example, involved consideration of the wear, patina, and heritage implied by household goods (McCracken, 1988). British norms have changed substantially since then and are likely to emphasize contrary concerns. However, there is no reason why the models categories and methods of analysis should not, as long as they are sensitively applied, elucidate consumer behavior for services in diverse contexts. The results are, therefore, clearly of interest to the management of retail and other service environments, particularly the design and implementation of tactics with respect to atmospherics. This would, however, require further, more detailed research directed toward breaking down the meaning of plea-

sure, arousal, and dominance in terms of the specific components of service environments such as color, texture, lighting, temperature, and crowding (Hackett, Foxall, and van Raaij, 1993). Such detailed research is beyond the scope of the present article, but closely related investigations concerned with consumers evaluation of service environments have been undertaken in a variety of relevant contexts (e.g., Foxall and Hackett, 1992, 1994; Hackett and Foxall, 1994, 1995, 1997). Those studies suggest that a four-stage sequential research program is required for the application of our findings to the management of particular service environments. First, the environment should be defined in terms of the BPM contingency variableslow/high utilitarian reinforcement, low/high informational reinforcement, and closed/open setting scope. Second, the unique pattern of pleasure, arousal, and dominance associated with the resulting categorization should be identified. Third, the physical and social stimuli capable of generating the required emotional response or mitigating the effects of the probable emotional response should be determined. Finally, these stimuli should be managed in order to produce the desired impact on consumers approach and avoidance responses.

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