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Traditionally, researchers in environmental psychology have developed the classic C (cognition)‐ E (emotion)‐ B (behavior) paradigm. However, some researchers have failed to replicate this classic paradigm and suggested that cognition is an antecedent to emotions. The main goals of this research are to extend the C‐E‐B paradigm by incorporating consumers' perceptions of service quality and to determine whether the extended model of consumer shopping mall decision process is invariant across English and French Canadian consumers.

By conducting a three‐step analysis, six hypotheses are empirically examined through a survey of 266 “real” English and French Canadian consumers in a shopping mall.

Findings indicate that consumers' evaluations of service quality in a shopping environment mediate their pleasure and purchase intention. Consumer mall shopping decision‐making process is invariant across English and French Canadian consumers.

For researchers who are interested in understanding consumer mall shopping behavior cross‐culturally, this research provides a model that can be tested in cross‐cultural contexts. For mall operators and store managers attempting to improve the mall environment, product quality, and offer better service, the study provides interesting solutions.

By incorporating service quality into consumer mall shopping decision making, this research has demonstrated that consumers' moods evoked by their perceptions of shopping mall environment and of product quality influence their purchase intentions through their perceptions of service quality. The mall shopping decision‐making process of English and French Canadian consumers is universal, regardless of their cultural orientations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the shopping mall environment impacts on hedonic and utilitarian shopping experiences, and approach behaviour of fashion leaders and followers.

Fashion shoppers' response and behaviour has been modelled in an invariant multigroup latent structural path analysis. Paths were initially constrained and then released as required. More than 300 usable questionnaires were acquired from a mall intercept in a regional urban middleclass shopping centre. Participants were probed on their attitude about fashion, perception of the shopping mall, present mood, shopping value and approach behaviour toward the mall.

The mall environment directly influences fashion leaders' hedonic shopping experience and approach behaviour. Fashion followers' hedonic shopping experience may be mood driven, while that of fashion leaders' is triggered by higher involvement cognitive processing.

This study was carried out in one fashion‐oriented urban mall in Montreal, and should be replicated to other locations and markets. A larger sample would allow the inclusion of additional constructs.

Mall owners and developers might appeal to fashion leaders through offering services that will speed up their shopping trip, using high‐tech methods to convey fashion information and by branding the mall. Fashion followers and laggards are likely to respond to experience‐oriented strategies that make their shopping trip more pleasurable.

Although fashion consumer groups have been studied from various perspectives, no research was found that investigates the integrated shopping experience of fashion shoppers in a shopping mall setting. This study fills the void.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how the shopping mall environment influences the shopping experience and approach behaviour of female fashion shoppers.

Female shoppers were first clustered along the fashion orientation of the stores they patronise. Shoppers' response and behaviour was modelled in an invariant multigroup latent structural path analysis. Paths were initially constrained and then released as required. A total of 286 usable questionnaires were administered using a mall intercept survey method in a regional shopping centre. Participants were probed on their shopping activities, shopping mall perception, product perception, shopping value and approach behaviour toward the mall.

A favourable perception of the mall atmosphere elicits a positive perception of the merchandise offering and triggers hedonic shopping experiences. The effect of the mall environment, mediated by product perception, significantly impacts the shopping objectives of middle‐of‐the‐road female fashion shoppers. Mall atmospherics has no or little effect on the utilitarian value of low‐ or high‐fashion oriented shoppers. Hedonic response of fashion forward shoppers is not stronger than that of other fashion shoppers.

This study was carried out in one regional mall and should be replicated to other locations and markets. A larger sample would allow the inclusion of additional constructs.

Mall developers and operators are not only in real estate; they are also retailers. The mall environment is central to the perception of merchandise quality, and the shopping experience. Mall operators must be aware that the middle market target group is one that is highly sought after. They should strive to create a tenant mix that satisfies the many layers of fashion shopper needs.

This study represents a first attempt that investigates the integrated shopping experience of fashion shoppers in a shopping mall setting. It segments shoppers on their actual shopping behaviour rather than psychometrics.

The purpose of this paper is to explore female fashion shoppers’ perception and response to the mall environment. Specific objectives include a conceptual model of female fashion shoppers’ experience in a mall environment incorporating fashion orientation, store personality, shopping mall perception, shopping value, and patronage intentions.

Empirical testing is done with a latent path structural equation model. Data collection was carried out in a firmly controlled mall intercept survey which produced 312 usable questionnaires.

Results show that shoppers’ fashion orientation hypothesized to be a personality trait is not an antecedent to the perception of the mall environment. Instead, fashion orientation moderates the perception of product and service quality, hedonic shoppers’ response, and patronage intentions. The perceived mall personality has a focussed impact on the perception of product and service quality. The mall’s sophistication image influences the perception of product quality. On the other hand, the mall’s enthusiasm image atmosphere affects the perception of service quality. Perceptions of product and service quality are correlated and trigger positive hedonic and utilitarian shopping benefits.

Because findings from this study cannot be generalized to other situations, the research should be replicated to a variety of mall formats and shopper segments. Furthermore, other fashion-orientation factors (fashion leadership, fashion interest, and anti-fashion attitude) should be considered. However, along with model complexities, increased sample sizes are also required. Future studies may also include male shoppers to investigate differences in fashion motivation and mall shopping experience.

It is concluded that the person-place congruency theory is confirmed and that the shoppers’ fashion orientation should be included in the set of segmentation variables. Shopping malls cannot be everything to everyone without risking diluting their image. Downtown urban malls have the opportunity to adopt a well-defined positioning in order to differentiate themselves. Large suburban malls should partition themselves to remove image ambiguities. Mall managers must primarily work on the “meaning” of the mall atmosphere rather “mood.” Fashion shoppers are task oriented. Mall managers should design malls to facilitate the shopping experience with highly functional designs, simple layout, and clear signage in support of wayfinding.

Although fashion consumers have been studied from diverse perspectives, there is limited research on the experience of fashion shoppers in a mall setting. This study partly fills this gap in the literature by investigating how female fashion shoppers respond to the shopping center environment and commit to mall patronage.

This research extends Mehrabian and Russell's Stimulus‐Organism‐Response model to include both external (i.e. reputation) and internal source of information (i.e. website quality) as stimuli which affect consumers' response systems. The purpose of this paper is to test a more comprehensive model consisting of reputation and website quality (stimuli), cognition and emotion (organism) and purchase intention (response).

In total, 219 usable questionnaires were obtained at a large Midwestern university through online survey. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed for data analyses.

Reputation had a significant positive effect on consumers' emotion and significant negative effect on perceived risk. All four website quality dimensions had significant negative effects on perceived risk and significant positive effects on emotion, except for customer service. Perceived risk had a significant negative effect on consumers' emotion, and both perceived risk and emotion had a significant impact on purchase intention.

This research employed convenience sampling, which resulted in a majority of female respondents. The results may be generalized to a limited extent.

This study allows for empirical examination of the different effects of various components of retail websites on emotion, perceived risk and behavioral intentions. This research will add value to the related literature by filling the void of previous research and also will provide practical implications for online retailers on designing and maintaining positive consumer response. Strength of the research lies in its ecological validity, since respondents were not simply all reacting to the same single stimulus.

This replication and extension of Hirsch and Gruss examines the impact of spatial density and ambient scent on consumers' spatial perception and anxiety. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A 2 (spatial density: high, low)×3 (ambient scent: no scent, scent associated with spaciousness, scent associated with enclosed spaces) between-participants experimental design was implemented in a laboratory setting. A pretest determined scent selection and manipulation checks were successful.

Spatial perception was influenced by spatial density, but not ambient scent. Ambient scent and spatial density interacted, such that consumers' anxiety levels significantly increased under conditions of low spatial density combined with an ambient scent associated with spaciousness, and directionally increased under conditions of high spatial density combined with ambient scent associated with enclosed space.

This research was conducted in a laboratory setting in order to increase experimental control. An exploration of the strength of the observed effects in a field (retail) setting would be insightful.

Results of this study suggest that retailers need to consider both spatial density and choice of ambient scent carefully in order to reduce consumers' anxiety levels.

This research is one of the few to consider the impact of spatial density and ambient scent on consumers' anxiety levels. The use of a between-participants design and the experimental manipulation of both spatial density and ambient scent results in a more rigorous test of the scent – anxiety relation observed in previous research.

Obesity among elderly consumers precipitates undesirable health outcomes. This study aims to investigate the effects of environmental cues on food intake of elderly consumers in an aged-care facility.

A longitudinal study conducted over 17 weeks in situ within an aged-care facility with 31 residents investigated how auditory (soothing music), olfactory (floral-scented candle) and visual (infographic on health benefits of the main meal component) cues influenced food intake quantity during a meal, while accounting for portion size effect (PSE).

Analysing the cross-sectional results of individual treatments and rounds did not reveal any consistent patterns in the influence of the three environmental cues. Longitudinal analyses, however, showed that the presence of auditory and olfactory cues significantly increased food intake, but the visual cue did not. Moreover, PSE was strong.

Extending research into environmental factors from a commercial to a health-care setting, this study demonstrates how the presence of auditory and olfactory, but not cognitive cues, increased food intake behaviour among elderly consumers. It also shows that a cross-sectional approach to such studies would have yielded inconclusive or even misleading findings. Merely serving more would also lead to higher food intake amount.

Environmental factors should be a part of health-care providers’ arsenal to manage obesity. They are practical and relatively inexpensive to implement across different health-care settings. However, the same environmental factors would have opposite desired-effects with normal or underweight residents, and hence, aged-care facilities need to separate the dining experience (or mealtime) of obese and other residents. Quantity served should also be moderated to discourage overeating.

While studies into managing obesity, particularly among older adults, have mainly focused on techniques such as pharmacotherapy treatments with drugs, dietary management or even lifestyle change, less attention has been given to the influence of environmental cues. This study, executed in situ within an aged-care facility, provided evidence of the importance of considering the impact of environmental factors on food intake to help reduce obesity.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of atmospherics in the creation of an hedonic retail experience by comparing the perceived differences between a retail environment attempting to provide an hedonic experience and one with a more utilitarian focus.

A qualitative methodology was employed, using protocol analysis and in‐depth semi‐structured interviews that were conducted with ten participants.

The paper highlights several atmospheric cues and their influence on the hedonic retail experience. The first category of cues – attractive stimuli – were those cues that attracted attention, exciting the participant and eliciting approach behaviours. The second category – facilitating stimuli – included those cues that were necessary in order to facilitate product engagement.

The paper provides a broad categorisation of atmospheric cues, providing factors that shop designers can be aware of when creating a store with the hedonic experience in mind.