The moderating role of target-arousal on the impact of affect on satisfaction - An examination in the context of service experiences

Recently, an increasing number of studies have focused on the emotional role of satisfaction in the consumption of services. In this study, a new moderating variable called "target-arousal level" was introduced to advance our understanding of the role of pleasure and arousal in the satisfaction evaluation process. The results from our experimental study indicate that the traditional pleasure-arousal interaction effect (e.g., Mehrabian and Russell, 1974) might be limited to high target arousal situations. Optimal arousal theories (e.g., Berlyne, 1960), on the other hand, might offer a fruitful framework for the satisfaction-arousal link in low target arousal environments.