Intrapersonal Affective Influences on Consumer Satisfaction with Products

Abstract

Research on consumer satisfaction with products has typically ignored in-fluences other than the confirmation of expectations relative to product out-comes. This paper examines the impact of broader, intrapersonal affective variables on satisfaction, and presents empirical results on the relative effects of both types of influence. Recent years have seen a growing interest in assessing current levels of consumer satisfaction/ dissatisfaction with products and services (Andreasen and Best 1977; Day and Landon 1976), as well as ex-plaining the processes through which consumers arrive at such judgments (Anderson 1973; Cardozo 1965; 01shavsky and Miller 1972; Swan and Combs 1976). Typically, efforts to account for satisfaction/dissatis-faction involve considerations of consumers ' expec-tations and perceptions of product performance. A lim-itation of these accounts, however, is their neglect of other intrapersonal influences on satisfaction/dissat-isfaction, such as affective state and generalized attitudes. This paper presents an exploratory study to assess the impact of such influences. A fuller accounting of the determinants of satisfaction/dissatisfaction should benefit not only the development of more comprehen-sive theory, but also add perspective to private- and public-sector efforts to assure buyer welfare. THEORY Consumer satisfaction with a product refers to the favorability of the individual's subjective evaluation of the various outcomes and experiences associated with using or consuming it (Hunt 1977). According to theories of buyer behavior (Engel, Kollat, and Black-well 1973; Howard and Sheth 1969), the evaluation is based on a cognitive process in which consumers com-pare their prior expectations of product outcomes (i.e., product performance and other important attributes)

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