Perceived Control and the Effects of Crowding and Consumer Choice on the Service Experience

Perceived control is proposed to be a crucial variable in mediating the consumer's emotional and behavioral responses to the physical environment and the contact personnel that constitute the service encounter. Results of an experimental test of this proposition confirm the importance of perceived control in mediating the effects of two situational features of the encounter--consumer density (the number of consumers that are present in a service setting) and consumer choice (whether it is a person's own decision to enter into, and stay in, a service situation)--on the pleasantness of the service experience and the consumer's approach-avoidance responses to the service encounter. Copyright 1991 by the University of Chicago.