The role of affect in consumer satisfaction judgments of credence-based services

In the search for satisfaction, researchers have developed the disconfirmation model to represent the process used to arrive at such a judgment. This model has evolved through the use of product-based research. The applicability of such a model to the services setting has not been explored. At question is the applicability of the components of the disconfirmation model and the relationships among these components. The current research attempts to assess the applicability of the disconfirmation model, along with the affective extension suggested by Oliver (1993), to the services setting. Affect is posited to have a direct positive effect on performance evaluations, satisfaction with the service encounter, and repeat patronage intentions. Disconfirmation is hypothesized to have a direct positive effect on satisfaction with the service encounter. A videotaped service encounter was shown to 163 southeastern university students. The structural model tested has an acceptable fit to the data ( χ 2 3df = 3.81, p ≥ .05). An alternative structural model without the affect constructs was assessed to test the influence of affect. The alternative model provided an unacceptable fit to the data ( χ 2 10df = 137.36, p ≤ .05). The chi-square difference test of the two nested models revealed that the model containing affect is a significant improvement over the model without affect ( χ 2 7df = 133.55, p ≤ .05). The influence of disconfirmation, which is prevalent in product-based applications of the model, was not significant in the current service setting. Affect has a significant influence on performance evaluations only. The significant influence of affect in the model may be due to the nature of services (e.g., experience and credence qualities).