Evaluating a servicescape: the effect of cognition and emotion

Abstract

The debate among researchers regarding whether cognition precedes emotion or emotion precedes cognition in individuals’ evaluation process still remains unresolved and ambiguous. This paper attempts to review literature relating to the impact of the servicescape on customer behavior, with emphasis on the concept of Gestalt psychology. The Gestalt approach serves as a guide to understand and explain how an individual forms an impression or a perceptual image of a servicescape, how the image formation then leads to an emotional response, and finally, the actual appraisal or evaluation of a specific service environment.

Introduction

Many studies have shown that physical environments, also termed servicescapes, play an important role, both positive and negative, in customers’ impression formation (Bitner, 1992). This paper summarizes and reviews literature regarding the effects of servicescapes on customer behavior (1) to ascertain implications of these effects for service providers, (2) to get an overall picture and a general understanding of an individual's evaluation process of a servicescape, and (3) to provide an understanding of the roles servicescapes play in influencing consumer behavior. This paper also attempts to extend this literature with the following additions to existing work. Specifically, the often-ignored concept of Gestalt psychology will be introduced and emphasized, because individuals tend to view servicescapes holistically as opposed to based on one or two specific environmental cues. A discussion of whether cognition or emotion comes first in consumers’ evaluations of servicescapes is followed by a discussion of the importance of cognition to research in servicescape evaluation.

Do consumers first think or feel when they enter a servicescape? Over the years, an immense literature has developed on emotion and cognition. Researchers have argued from both perspectives; some researchers argue that cognitive states precede emotional states (Lazarus, 1999; Oliver (1980), Oliver (1981)), while others argue that emotional states precede cognitive states during the process of evaluation or appraisal (Pham et al., 2001; Swinyard, 1993). The debate remains unresolved.

There is a great deal of literature focusing on and verifying the benefits of providing good service to customers and of offering better training to increase employee motivation, performance, and productivity in the service industry. Research typically accords priority to the service encounter to increase sales and profits and customer satisfaction. Yet little research focus has been placed on the impact of servicescapes on customers’ perception and evaluation of these settings. Servicescapes are an important tangible component of the service product that provide cues to customers and create an immediate perceptual image in customers’ minds (Kotler, 1973). Levitt (1981) notes that when customers evaluate intangible products (e.g., services), they always depend to some extent on both appearance and external impression; servicescapes, in this context, encompass the appearance and impression of the service organization's overall products and services. Based on Levitt's explanation, since the hospitality industry provides a high degree of intangible product levels like services, consumers are likely to use tangible aspects like appearances to make judgments and evaluations. Servicescapes, in this case, are not only an important component of a customer's impression formation, but also an important source of evidence in the overall evaluation of the servicescape itself and the service organization in general.

Particularly in the hotel division of the hospitality industry, guests interact with the physical environment more than with the service agent. That is, consumers interact with the servicescape prior to experiencing the service in an exchange with a service agent. Hence, it is various environmental cues and physical components that help individuals form a holistic picture of the overall servicescape. Following the concept of Gestalt psychology, I argue that when customers evaluate a servicescape (e.g., measuring satisfaction or appraisal), individual perception serves as a cognitive schema. An individual's cognitive perceptions stimulate his or her emotional responses (e.g., pleasure, arousal, and dominance (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974)). Hence, as Lazarus (1999) noted, cognition precedes emotion when individuals are appraising the servicescape.