What are the 4 types of cognitive appraisals that are especially relevant for consumer behavior?

Tourism and hospitality marketers are shifting their focus from the rational aspect of product/service characteristics (e.g., bigger, cheaper, better) to the emotional aspect of consumption (e.g., feelings, joy) because emotions play a vital role in inspiring consumer behavior (Kwortnik & Ross, 2007; Lim, 2014; Scott et al., 2009). Consumers avoid buying products and services that are anticipated to result in negative emotions, such as disappointment or regret (Kim et al., 2013), and make decisions in pursuit of positive emotional outcomes (Goossens, 2000; Hosany et al., 2019). Indeed, consumption emotions significantly influence consumer satisfaction and loyalty intentions for events (Grappi & Montanari, 2011), accommodation services (Ali et al., 2016; Deng et al., 2013), restaurant services (Han et al., 2009; Song & Qu, 2017), entertainment attractions (Benkenstein et al., 2003), and tourism destinations (Abubakar & Mavondo, 2014; Prayag et al., 2017). Hence, the relationship between emotions and consumer behavior is stronger and more direct than the connection between attitude and behavior in case of hedonic tourism and hospitality experiences (Bagozzi et al., 2002).

The tourism and hospitality literature remains dominated by research on the cognitive and behavioral consequences of emotions, while few studies investigate the antecedents of emotions (Cohen et al., 2014; Hosany, 2012). Researchers have examined how marketing stimuli such as print advertising (Walters et al., 2012), video (Kim et al., 2014), and website (Björk, 2010) should be effectively designed to stimulate pre-consumption emotions. Others also reveal that service quality (Han & Jeong, 2013; Lo et al., 2015; Ribeiro & Prayag, 2018), customer perception of servicescape (Lin & Worthley, 2012; Meng & Choi, 2017), and hotel design elements (Baek & Michael Ok, 2017; Siamionava et al., 2018; Tantanatewin & Inkarojrit, 2018) influence consumer emotions during consumption stage.

Previous studies on the antecedents of emotions, however, rely on simple stimulus-response models to examine the antecedents of emotions without investigating how consumer emotions are elicited and differentiated through (cognitive) mental processes (Lin, 2004; Moyle et al., 2017a). The critical weakness of stimulus-response models is to assume that a stimulus will automatically evoke specific emotional responses. Hence, this approach is insufficient to explain why and how two individuals experience different emotions in response to the same stimulus/event (Hosany, 2012; Ma et al., 2017). Without a firm theoretical foundation to explain the elicitation of emotions from a mental processing perspective, the current literature is put at risk of providing implausible conclusions of emotion-evoking principles and mistakenly consider affect-driven consumption behavior as unexplainable and biased (Bagozzi et al., 2000; Zeelenberg et al., 2008). This situation poses a big challenge for marketing professionals in designing and implementing emotion-focused marketing for encouraging consumer hedonic consumption in tourism and hospitality.

The cognitive appraisal theory of emotions, which provides an explanatory model of why particular emotions are elicited in response to marketing stimuli, consists of a reliable theoretical foundation to move the field forward (Ma et al., 2013; Prayag et al., 2019). According to appraisal theory, emotions are not an automatic response to a stimulus but an outcome of a subconscious mental evaluation of a stimulus based on criteria such as its novelty, relevance, congruence in relation to one’s disposition (i.e., prior knowledge, goals/needs) (Moors et al., 2013). Even though the cognitive appraisal theory has become the dominant approach in emotion studies (Liu et al., 2016; Zheng et al., 2019), research on the appraisal determinants of consumer pre-consumption emotions remains scarce (Hosany, 2012; Le et al., 2019), perhaps because most researchers tend to consider emotions as heuristics and bias in decision-making (Gnoth, 1997; Pearce & Packer, 2013).

Against this background, our study aims to fill the research gap. This paper provides a much-needed advancement in understanding consumer affect-driven behavior from a mental processing perspective (Cian et al., 2015). Our research investigates how marketing stimuli are subconsciously evaluated in relation to consumer disposition (goals/needs, prior knowledge) through appraisal processes, leading to emotional and behavioral responses. Two overarching research questions guiding research design in this paper are: (1) Why hedonic consumption behavior is driven by pre-consumption emotions?; (2) How should marketing stimuli be designed and communicated to evoke positive emotions and positively influence consumer behavior? Grounded on the cognitive appraisal theory, a theoretical framework of consumer affect-driven behavior is proposed based on a literature review (Fig. 1) and then tested by an experimental study. We examine consumer appraisals, emotions and behavioral intentions in four experimental conditions that participants were exposed to, that is, marketing stimuli represented in two visual formats (poster vs. video) and delivered through two channels (advertising vs. eWOM).

Research outcomes support the proposed theoretical framework, clarifying the logic of consumer affect-driven behavior. Positive emotions related to future tourism and hospitality experiences are elicited through subconscious appraisal processes of marketing stimuli. The elicitation of positive emotions informs consumers about the availability of tourism and hospitality experiences that are relevant to satisfying their current goals/needs (Pham, 2007; Zeelenberg et al., 2008). Thus, positive emotions consist of a fast-thinking system that allows consumers to filter irrelevant choices and focus further rational considerations on goal-relevant choices (Kahneman, 2011; Kwortnik & Ross, 2007). Based on this theoretical foundation, emotion-focused marketing implications are recommended, concentrating on customizing goal-relevant marketing contents to target customers with specific goals/needs.

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  What is different cognitive appraisal?

  Cognitive appraisal (also called simply 'appraisal') is the subjective interpretation made by an individual to stimuli in the environment. It is a component in a variety of theories relating to stress, mental health, coping, and emotion.

  What are the four aspects of appraisal process in stress response?

  The CARS includes four subscales that assess commitment (appraisal of the extent to which one actively commits to the situation), appraisal of influence, appraisal of threat, and controllability.

  How many stages are there to the cognitive appraisal to stress?

  In general, cognitive appraisal is divided into two types or stages: primary and secondary appraisal.

  What is cognitive stress appraisal?

  Cognitive stress appraisal is a self-care strategy based on individuals' evaluation of how they perceive stressors. In primary appraisal, an individual's evaluations are divided into 'threat' and 'challenge'; threat describes anticipated harm/loss, and challenge describes a threat that can be met or overcome.