E‐atmosphere, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses

This research is designed to investigate the effects of the apparel online shopping environment on emotions and cognitive and behavioral responses based on Mehrabian and Russell's model, which utilizes the stimulus‐organism‐response (S‐O‐R) paradigm.

A total of 230 female undergraduate students participated in an experiment after browsing a stimulus website. The effects of the use of a model, color swapping on clothing, and enlargement (2 × 2 × 2 between‐subjects factorial design) on emotions and the relationships among pleasure, arousal, perceived amount of information, perceived risk, and purchase intention were tested using SEM.

The results showed an effect of enlargement on pleasure (H1c), a positive relationship between pleasure and perceived amount of information (H2a), and negative relationships between perceived amount of information and product quality and online transaction risk (H3a) and consequential risk (H3b), and between product quality and online transaction risk and purchase intention (H4a). The post hoc test revealed the negative relationships between pleasure/arousal and product quality and online transaction risk, positive relationships between pleasure/arousal and purchase intention, and positive relationship between perceived amount of information and purchase intention.

The study used a sample of female undergraduate students at a Midwest university, which limits generalizability to other consumer groups. The experiment was conducted online and the different computer conditions might have influenced respondents' online shopping experiences.

The study enhances understanding of online shopping environment and relationships among the emotional (pleasure and arousal), cognitive, and behavioral response mechanisms.