TheorySOR

SOR theory or Stimulus, Organism, Response Theory is a theory that began in the environmental science literature

• adapted the theory to retail and consumer behavior literature to explain how SOR can help create a positive environment in retail stores that leads to greater purchases.
• Wanted to study approach-avoidance behaviors within retail environments
• provided the first empirical test of the effects of the retail atmosphere.
• Tested people’s stated behavioral intentions rather than actual behaviors
• Affect, or store induced pleasure is a very powerful  determinant of approach-avoidance behaviors within the store, including spending behavior.
• Inducement of arousal works positively one in store environments that are already pleasant

• The dominance measure does not seem s to relate well to in-store behavior
• The SOR framework consists of antecedents (the attributes of the environment), the intervening emotional state, and a taxonomy of outcomes based on the approach–avoidance concept suggested by Wundt (1905).
• Tested  the linkage between the O and the R variables, with promising results.
• Limitation: Student subjects were used and the subjects were surveyed before their interaction with the store
• Intentions were measured rather than actual behavior, thus the study was more exploratory
• This study was instrumental in empirically showing that the environment of the retail store does indeed have significant and measurable effects on shopping behaviors.

There are three parts (emotions) to the MR model

Russell (1978) proposed a three-dimensional schema of pleasure, arousal, and dominance or PAD

• Liking of the store
• Enjoyment of shoppingin the store
• Willingness to spend time in the store
• Willingness to explore the environment
• Feelings of friendliness to others
• Willingness to return
• Liklihood of spending more money than intended

• The dominance part of the PAD 3-dimensional emotional component of SOR is usually deleted in studies using SOR
• Argues that shoppers should be measure during their shopping experience thus their post-purchase emotions are not involved when scoring the intervening organism (PAD) variable
• Used female shoppers as subjects
• Surveyed shoppers during and after their shopping experience
• Predicted time and money spent vs. actual time and money spent
• Concluded that the MR model using PA of the PAD organism(emotional) component of the MR model is useful in studying store behavior
• pleasure induced by store environments  appears to be a strong cause of consumers  spending  extra  time  in  the 
• store  and  spending mom  money  than intended.
• Limitation: Used a small sample limited to discount department stores
• Therefore the environment may not have been as appealing as in other stores

• Goal to test the utility of Mehrabian's mood scale combined with consumer perceptions of store image on actual shopping behavior
• Moods & store image (IV’s, organism) leading to responses (positive outcomes, intention to return, purchases, how many times store is visited, etc.)
• Authors found that consumers' moods are positively related to store image, number of Items bought, and the amount of
• money spent.
• results of their finding are that the scales used were valid in the retail setting, with good reliability scores and high factor loadings on theoretical expectations.
• Supported that the mood of the consumer may have influence on the number of items bought in the store, spending more money than originally anticipated and more time than intended spent in the store
• They conducted the study not on behavioral intentions, but surveyed after the behavior had already occurred as recommended by donnovan and rossiter (1982)
• Measured subjects after their shopping experience rather their anticipated experience or during their shopping
• experience     
• used a single “mood” measure  summed across the three  PAD dimensions (rather than using 3 factors)

• study of the effect of store environment on consumer emotions and the resulting influence on aspects of consumer behavior with actual shopping behavior used as an example.
• Cast into astimulus–organism–response framework, the results suggest that a consumer’s emotions can be a mediating factor in the purchase process.
• Approach or avoidance behavior can be observed via:
• Retail patronage
• Store search
• Interactions with store personnel
• In-store behavior

• Measured emotions at the time of purchase to eliminate any bias between actual purchase and intentions
• Used Baker (1986) typology of store environment for the stimulus part of the model:
• Social factors: Relate to other people present in the store
• Design factors
• Visual factors of the environment: layout, cleanliness, clutter, space
• Ambient factors: Non-visual factors of a store’s environment incl. music, smell, lighting
• Last factor used for IV’s was store image
• Created a model with the organism separated into pleasure and arousal mediating dimensions followed by: The response variable
• Used Donovan and Rossiter’s response outcomes (approach avoidance): Money spent, Liking the store, number of items purchased, time spent in the store

• Only fashion store shoppers were sampled AFTER their store experience
• Used a very large sample compared to prior studies: 900+
• Used Dickson and Albaum’s (1977) store environment measures
• Came up with 4 stimulus factors with 20 items
• Overall store image, design factor, social factor, and ambience factor

• Response variables were single items about shopping behavior in the store from MR1974
• First to perform SEM to help to understand shopping bevior using SOR theory
• Social factors had a positive effect on pleasure but not arousal
• Image did not have an impact on pleasure or arousal
• Design has a positive impact on pleasure and a negative impact on arousal
• Ambience had a positive impact on arousal
• Pleasure and arousal has a positive impact on money spent in the store
• Pleasure has a positive influence on store liking but not arousal
• Pleasure did not have a sig. influence on number of items purchased or the time spent in store but arousal sig. affected items purchased and time spent in store
• A limitation: It may be assumed that more people in negative moods were non-respondentsidentified  and  explored  how  store  environment  and emotional states may influence various dimensions of purchase behavior.reaffirms that retailers should pay attention to consumer’s in-store emotional state (pleasure and arousal), because the emotions of consumers are important factors in buyer behavior.
• In the present study, social factors and the design of the store had apositive impact on pleasure, and ambience positively affected arousal.
• This  research  also  found  that  pleasure  had  a  positive  influence  on money spent and liking the store, and arousal had a positive impact on money spent in the store, time spent in the store, and the number of items  purchased  in  the store.  
• Contradicted Donovan et al. (1994) by stating pleasure is more closely associated with store liking and money spent in the store. (rather than unplanned spending and extra time in-store

A stimulus is the environment that causes emotion and ultimately leads to approach-avoidence behaviors.

• Something that rouses or incites to action or increased action.
• External factors associated with a pending decision
• Consist of marketing mix variables and other environmental inputs
• Stimulus is the store atmosphere in many retail/consumer studies
• Scholars measuring how the stimulus is related to emotions/mood

• “internal processes and structures intervening between stimuli  external  to  the  person  and  the  final  actions, reactions, or  responses  emitted. Notice  that  the  intervening  processes  and  structures consist  of  perceptual,  physiological,  feeling,  and  thinking  activities”Emotional state is the ‘intervening variable’
• The effect of store atmosphere on consumer behavior is mediated by the consumer’s emotional state
• Emotional state is conceptualized by PAD: Pleasure-displeasure, Arousal-nonarousal, Dominance-submissiveness: <--- Often not used by scholars in retail

• The reaction of consumers, including psychological reactions such as attitudes and/or behavioral reactions.
• These response outcomes are considered approach avoidance behaviors (Wundt, 1905)

• a conceptual model of online retailing using SOR is proposed
• examines the potential influence of atmospheric qualities of a virtual store.
• atmospheric cues of the online store, through the intervening effects of affective and cognitive states, influence the outcomes of online retail shopping in terms of approach/avoidance behaviors.
• Two individual traits, involvement and atmospheric responsiveness, are hypothesized to moderate the relationship between atmospheric cues and shoppers’ affective and cognitive reactions
• The model describes how the online retail store’s environment influences  shoppers’  emotional  and  cognitive  states  that  then alter various aspects of shopping outcomes.
• grouped the environmental characteristics  of  the  virtual  ‘‘store’’  into  two  general  categories.
• high task-relevant environment is defined as all the site descriptors (verbal or pictorial)  that  appear  on  the  screen  which  facilitate  and enable the consumer’s shopping goal attainment
• low task relevant environment represents  site  information that  is  relatively  inconsequential  to  completion  of  the shopping task.
• High  task-relevant  cues  include  verbal  content  related to the shopping goals

is defined as all the site descriptors (verbal or pictorial)  that  appear  on  the  screen  which  facilitate  and enable the consumer’s shopping goal attainment

represents  site  information that  is  relatively  inconsequential  to  completion  of  the shopping task.

verbal  content  related to the shopping goals:

descriptions of the merchandise,  price,  terms  of  sale,  delivery,  and  return  policies), pictures of the merchandise, availability of sampling, and navigation aids (e.g., site map, guide bar at top or bottom of  page

Examples  of  low  task-relevant  cues  are  verbalcontent,  which  is  unrelated  to  shopping  goals  (e.g.,‘‘check  this  out’’),  colors,  borders  and  background  pat-terns, typestyles and fonts, animation, music and sounds,entertainment (e.g., games or contests), amount of ‘‘whitespace,’’  icons,  image  maps,  pictures  other  than  the  merchandise  (e.g.,  for  decorative  purposes),  indicators  of secure connections/transactions, ‘‘unity’’ of site, webcounter, site awards, and affiliations (e.g., BBB).

• empirically testing a model (Eroglu, Machleit, & Davis, 2001) that describes the effect of store atmospherics on shopping outcomes.
• Model posits that atmospheric cues of the online store, through the intervening effects of affective and cognitive states, influence the outcomes of online shopping in terms of approach/avoidance behaviors.
• In addition, the model hypothesizes that two individual  traits,  atmospheric  responsiveness  and  involvement, moderate the relationship between atmospheric cues and shoppers’ affective and cognitive reactions.
• Online environmental cues lead to cognitive(attitudinal) and affective internal states which result in approach/avoidance behaviors (response)these online atmospheric cues (e.g., colors, graphics, layout, and design) can provide information about the retailer (e.g., the quality or type of retailer, the target audience of the retailer) as well as influencing shopper responses during the site visit.
• Eroglu, Machleit, and Davis (2000) hypothesized that the online store atmosphere is comprised of high and low task-relevant information.

Atmospherics has been defined as “the conscious designing of space to create certain buyer effects, specifically, the designing of buying environments to produce specific emotional effects in the buyer that enhance purchase probability” (Kotler, 1973-1974).

atmospheric responsiveness trait can be reflected in the extent to which environmental characteristics influence customers’ decisions on where and how to shop as well as the outcomes of the shopping experience (Eroglu et al., 2001).

• Used a website for a fictitious retailor to avoid the effects of prior experience with a retailor
• Dominance dimension not used in this study either
• Performed SEM on their empirically operationalized model
• Results show that that site atmosphere affects the level of pleasure that was felt, which in turn  influences attitude, which has strong effects on satisfaction and approach/avoidance  behavior (H1)
• Online store atmosphere does indeed make a difference.
• It was seen that increasing the atmospheric qualities of the online store Web site increases the level of pleasure felt by the shopper. This effect is moderated by involvement and atmospheric responsiveness.
• The effect of the site atmosphere on attitude, satisfaction, and approach/avoidance behavior is not direct and appears to be the result of the emotions experienced by the shopper.
• At least two limitations are evident.
• The first is that the PAD emotion scheme did not capture much of the effect of site atmosphere.
• A second limitation is the student sample and the hypothetical shopping situation.
• Online shopping is no longer the exclusive outlet of the young, male, and early adopters, nor is it the toy of the technologically savvy student body.
• The typical shopper profile, in fact, is the college-educated, married, middle-aged woman (Cyr, 2000).
• Future studies should use samples to reflect this new profile.

• Identified atmospherics, i.e. website features that stimulate emotional response, on tour operators’ websites
• Exploratory study using the PAD 3D structure to measure emotional response.
• Interested in SO of the SOR model
• Emphasized that the stimulus part of the SOR model is the least studied portion of the model
• Interested in:
• Which website features stimulate emotional response?
• What links can be identified between emotion  stimulating  website  features  and  the emotional response triggered?
• Four main categories of website quality dimensions:
• These are information breadth and depth (reliability, price knowledge),
• the  structure  of  the  website  (responsiveness, access,  flexibility,  ease  of  navigation,  efficiency),
• the aesthetic dimension of the interface (site aesthetics), and
• the option for interaction that enhances flow (customization/personalization) (Parasuraman et al., 2005).
• Moods and emotions have been used interchangeably but are defined separately here
• Emotions and mood are two central elements of an affective response (Bagozzi et al., 1999).  
• Emotions  are  intentional  and  respond directly to service atmospherics (website features) (Dube´ and Menon, 2000) in comparison to moods, which  are  non-intentional,  diffused  and  less intense than emotions (Peter and Olson, 2005).
• Used people in the process of planning their next holliday trip as subjects
• Qual study that Interviewed 42 people
• Authors used four categories of website quality dimensions
• 1.Information content and structure
• 2.Pictures
• 3.Interactivity
• 4.Impression

• information and pictures are the two most essential atmospherics.
• the emotional response system is most highly individual.
• The number of emotional responses fluctuates from one respondent to another.
• The structure  and  valence  of  the  emotional responses is individual.
• Second, the emotional response to atmospherics is also individual.
• The information structure and content of the website enhanced positive emotions among some respondents, whereas others did not like the website at all.
• Pictures stimulated positive emotions in contrast to interactivity, which was not well developed  on  this  website. Website  features  which enable smooth ‘surfing’ around immersed some respondents  to  the  extent  that  they  felt  flow, whilst others did not like the structure of the website at all.
• The small sample used in this study did not allow for a more precise categorization of the atmospherics, a limitation
• Developed what they called the ‘atmospheric response model’

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