Emotions and Customers' Perception of Website Atmospheric Cues

The primary purpose of this study was to develop a more comprehensive model of online consumer behaviour and test it in different industries to increase the generalizability of the results. This study used Zajonc (1980) theory of emotions and Mehrabian and Russell (1974) Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) paradigm to examine the relationships between customers’ emotions, perception of site atmospheric and other behavioural and intentional variables. Based on Zajonc (1980) theory of emotions, it is proposed that customers’ emotions arise upon the initial exposure to the website, which in turn, influences their perception of site atmospheric cues such as site informativeness, site effectiveness, and site entertainment. Then, based on SOR paradigm, it is proposed that customers’ perceptions influence their intentional and behavioural variables such as site attitudes, site involvement, product attitudes, and purchase intention. To increase the generalizability of the findings, the proposed model was tested in three studies. In addition, the path coefficients of all the relationships in the model were compared in those studies. First study tested and compared the path coefficients of all the relationships in the model between physical goods and services websites. The results of multi-group analysis in EQS supported the overall model and demonstrated several non-invariant paths between the two groups. Particularly, the results suggested that the influences of pleasure and arousal on customers’ perception of site atmospheric cues are stronger for physical goods customers and influences of site effectiveness on site attitudes and informativeness are stronger for services customers. Second study tested the model and compared the path invariance among three types of services: search-, experience-, and credence-based. The results, again, supported the overall model and revealed several non-invariant structural paths. The results suggested that the influences of “dominance” are the greatest for search-based services while “pleasure” impacts are greater for experience- and credence-based services. Third study tested the model and compared it between Canadian and Chinese cultures. The results supported the proposed model and demonstrated that half of the structural paths are non-invariant between the two groups. Particularly, the impacts of pleasure on perception of atmospheric cues are stronger for Canadian customers; whereas, dominance has greater influence on Chinese customers’ perception. Moreover, the impact of site entertainment on site attitudes and involvement are stronger for Chinese, while, site informativeness and effectiveness have greater impacts on Canadian customers. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it develops a more comprehensive model of online consumer behaviour and suggests that customers’ emotions at the initial exposure to the website are a driver of their site atmospheric perception. Second, it empirically tests the model in different industries and cultures and reports the differences across groups. Results of all the three studies supported the overall model and revealed many non-invariant structural paths across groups. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed in each study.