Control and affect: the influence of feeling in control of the retail environment on affect, involvement, attitude, and behavior

An Assessment of Consumers’ Willingness to Patronize Foreign-Based Business Format Franchises: An Investigation in the Fast-Food Sector

“…Theory of Environmental Psychology by Mehrabian-Russell (1974) are studied in relationships with retail patronage intentions are limited to stress (Lee, Moschis and Mathur 2001), boredom and distress (Mano 1999), existence/lack of self-confidence (Hisrich, Dornoff and Kernan 1972), existence/lack of feeling of control (Ward and Barnes 2001), psychic costs (Mehrabian and Russell 1974) and shopping experience costs (Becker 1965). …”

“…The influence of preexisting negative emotions on purchase intensions has not been explored as fully. The negative emotions studied by the Mehrabian-Russell theory have been used to explore retail patronage intentions including stress (Lee, Moschis and Mathur 2001), boredom and distress (Mano, 1999), existence/lack of self-confidence (Hisrich, Dornoff and Kernan 1972), existence/lack of feeling of control (Ward and Barnes 2001), psychic costs (Mehrabian and Russell 1974), and shopping experience costs (Becker, 1965). Overall, it is found that negative affect has a stronger impact on consumers (Babin and Darden 1996;Baker, Parasuraman, Grewal and Voss 2002).…”

“…These studies couple the Mehrabian-Russell theory with other theories such as: priming research (Sharma and Stafford 2000), classical conditioning theory (Yalch and Spangenberg 1990), resource allocation model (Hui, Dube and Chebat 1997), Eroglu-Harrell model of crowding (Eroglu and Machleit 1990), inference theory, schema theory, theory of affordances, and adaptation theory (Baker, Parasuraman, Grewal and Voss 2002), information processing theory (Eroglu, Machleit and Chebat 2005), Gestalt principle applied to retail environments (Wakefield and Blodgett 1999), Lazarus's model of goal-directed emotion-focused and problemfocused coping (Mano 1999), and emotional control (Ward and Barnes 2001). The findings from these studies were listed in Table 2.…”

“…For instance, Ward and Barnes (2001) highlight the fact that consumers' sense of dominance in the retail environment is strongly related to a variety of variables of interest to marketers. Most importantly, dominance can be a robust predictor of consumer affect in a retail environment (Ward and Barnes 2001). For instance, in fast food businesses, convincing customers that they can "have it your way," that services or products will be personalized to their needs, is a major positioning statement.…”

“…Control and dominance is closely tied. For instance, Ward and Barnes (2001) operationized control by the trait-dominance subscale developed by Mehrabian and Russell. There are many studies that have shown that people who feel in control are more healthy, active, and alert than those who feel out of control. Thus, consumers' sense of dominance in the retail environment is strongly related to a variety of variables of interest to marketers .…”