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

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. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.