The Effects of Social Density, Spatial Density, and Intimate on Perceived Crowding, Consumer Emotion, and

Abstract

[[abstract]]The purpose of this study is to inquire how the spatial density, social density and the meal person's intimate degree influence consumer's perceived crowding, consumer emotion and patronage Intention. A hypothesized path model using structural equation modeling was proposed to examine the correlation of variables. This study is an experimental research which aims to investigate the effects of spatial density, social density, and dining situation on perceived crowding. The three effects will be manipulated independently. The study is designed by 2 × 2 × 3 factors, including spatial density (high vs. low), social density (high vs. low), and the meal person's intimate degree (high vs. medium vs. low). A fictitious scenario will be offered to participants to read first, and then colored graphics for illustrating the crowded restaurant will be presented. Next, participants will answer the questionnaires. Each respondent will only be assigned one dining situation comprised of social density and the meal person's intimate degree factors. The spatial density factor will adopt a within-subject way to proceed situation simulation and randomly separate participants into two dining situation group (high spatial density and low spatial density). There are 12 fictitious scenarios and will be sent to respondents randomly. Subjects were 294 students of Nation Taiwan Normal University. Data were analyzed by SPSS12.0 and AMOS 6.0. The results of path analysis of structural equation modeling using AMOS indicatedthat “spatial density” and “social density” had significant direct effect on “perceived spatial crowding” and “perceived social crowding”. In particular, “perceived spatial crowding” had significant direct effect on “positive consumer emotion” and “negative consumer emotion”; “perceived social crowding” had significant direct effect on “positive consumer emotion”; “positive consumer emotion” and “negative consumer emotion” had significant direct effect on “patronage Intention”. Besides, the Subjects’ tolerance for crowding had moderated effect on the relationship of perceived crowding and consumer emotion. Most hypotheses were confirmed by the result of analysis.Suggestions for further study and limitations were discussed at the endof the study.