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The contrasting influences of incidental anger and fear on responses to a

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DOI: 10.1002/mar.21114

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DOI: 10.1002/mar.21114

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The contrasting influences of incidental anger and fear

on responses to a service failure

Lei Su1 ∗ Lisa C. Wan2 ∗ Robert S. Wyer Jr3 †

1 School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist

University, Hong Kong, China Abstract

2 School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Customers’ disposition to register a formal complaint about an inferior product or poor service is
Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, often mediated by attributions of responsibility. However, the anger or fear that people happen to
China be experiencing for totally irrelevant reasons can also influence this disposition. Two field studies
3 Marketing Department, The Chinese University
and four laboratory experiments indicate that when people feel angry at the time they encounter a
of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
service failure, they are more likely to blame the service provider for the failure and more likely to
Correspondence
Lei Su, WLB504, Hong Kong Baptist University,
register a complaint. When they experience fear, however, they are uncertain about the cause of
Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, China. their misfortune and decrease their negative reactions relative to conditions in which fear is not
Email: lsu@hkbu.edu.hk experienced. The effects of these incidental emotions are evident both when a service failure is
∗ The first two authors contributed equally to this
personally experienced and when it is only observed. These effects are eliminated, however, when
article.
individuals do not have the cognitive resources available to assess the reasons for the service fail-
† Robert Wyer is currently a visiting professor at
ure and the conditions surrounding it.
the University of Cincinnati.

KEYWORDS
attribution, complaint, incidental emotion, purchase intention, service failure

1 INTRODUCTION Furthermore, according to the data from the Beijing Consumer

Consumers’ complaints can often provide managers with insight into
how to improve their business. Several features of a consumption sit-
uation can influence individuals’ likelihood of complaining indepen-
dently of their satisfaction with the product or service itself, including
the nature of their personal relationship with the provider (Wan, Hui,
& Wyer, 2011) and whether they perceive that the failure was avoid-
able (Bitner, 1990; Chan & Wan, 2008). However, consumers’ com-
plaint behavior can also be influenced by factors that are objectively
irrelevant to the consumption experience. For example, consumers’
emotions at the time they encounter a service failure could affect their
disposition to complain or simply to withdraw from the situation inde-
pendently of the circumstances that gave rise to these emotions. The
present research explored this possibility.
Two commonly experienced basic emotions, anger and fear, are
associated with attributions of blame (Berkowitz, 1990; Tiedens &
Linton, 2001). Two incidents provide graphic evidence that people's
experience of these emotions for totally irrelevant reasons can affect
their subsequent complaint behavior. On September 10, 2012, the
Japanese government announced that it had purchased the Senkaku
Islands from “private owners,” thus creating conflict and animosity
between Japan and China. The anger of the Chinese people was evi-
dent throughout the country, as they smashed Japanese cars, and
protested outside the Japanese Embassy.
Association (2012), consumers’ complaints about the service they
received increased significantly in the weeks that followed.
A quite different incident occurred a year earlier, on May 15, 2011,
when an earthquake in eastern Japan caused major damage to the
Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. Chinese people panicked as a result
of the radiation leakage, often stocking up basic supplies in anticipa-
tion of food shortages. In this case, data from the same source indi-
cated a significant decrease in consumers’ complaints following the
incident.
The aforementioned examples raise the possibility that people's
incidental emotional reactions to a consumption situation can influ-
ence their complaint behavior independently of the characteristics
of the situation itself. For example, individuals who happen to feel
angry at the time they have a negative experience might attribute
the cause of the experience to others and this attribution might
stimulate an action against the perpetrator. In contrast, individu-
als who experience fear might be uncertain about the cause of the
event and feel out of control, leading them to avoid the situation
rather than confronting it. The effects of these emotional reactions
could occur independently of the events that have given rise to
them.
The research to be reported investigated this possibility. Partici-
pants were induced to feel either angry or fearful at the time they
encountered a service failure. People who felt angry were expected to

Psychol Mark. 2018;1–10. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mar 

c 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1
2 SU ET AL .
attribute responsibility for the situation to the service provider, lead-
ing them to register a complaint against the provider. In contrast, peo-
ple who experienced fear at the time they encountered the situation
were expected to be uncertain of the cause of the event, decreasing
their likelihood of complaining and increasing their disposition to avoid
the situation. The effects of these incidental emotions could be evi-
dent both when a service failure is personally experienced and when
it is only observed. In the latter case, angry observers might decrease
their likelihood of patronizing the provider in the future whereas fear
observers might increase this disposition.
2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Most research assumes that consumers base their decisions to com-
plain about an unfavorable service experience on features of the sit-
uation itself. These features can influence inferences that the service
failure was either intentional or beyond the provider's control (Bit-
ner, 1990; Chan & Wan, 2008) and perceptions of the likelihood of
receiving fair compensation (Blodgett, Hill, & Tax, 1997; Maxham &
Netemeyer, 2002). Complaint behavior can also be influenced by cus-
tomers’ personal relationship with the provider (Wan et al., 2011).
However, although customers’ responses to a negative consumption
experience seem likely to depend in part on the type and intensity of
their emotional reactions to it, little research has confirmed this intu-
ition (Smith & Bolton, 2002). That is, the extent to which complaint
behavior is induced by emotions that customers happen to be experi-
encing for reasons that are unrelated to the service failure itself has
not been examined. Furthermore, although past research has focused
on consumers’ reactions to a service failure that they personally expe-
rience (e.g., Bitner, 1990; Wan, 2013; Wan, Hui, et al., 2011), little
research has examined their reactions to a service failure that they
observe. Online complaints on social networking sites, which have
increased by 800% between 2014 and 2015 (Causon, 2015), capture
many observers’ attention and affect their purchase decisions. There-
fore, it is important to examine whether the effects of incidental emo-
tions on attributions of blame carry over to both suffering customers
and observing customers.
In considering this possibility, two emotions, anger and fear, are par-
ticularly likely to play a role. Although these emotions share a similar
valence, they are linked to distinctive patterns of cognitive appraisal,
especially attributions of responsibility (Berkowitz, 1990; Tiedens &
Linton, 2001). Most theory and research on the relation between emo-
tions and behavior assumes that emotional reactions to an event are
elicited by a cognitive appraisal of the circumstances that surround its
occurrence (Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988; Roseman, 1991; Smith &
Ellsworth, 1985). For example, if people attribute responsibility for a
negative event to another person and perceive that the other could
have prevented the event's occurrence, they may respond with anger
(Han, Lerner, & Keltner, 2007; Ortony et al., 1988). If they attribute the
event to an unstable situational factor, however, they may experience
anxiety and fear. Numerous studies confirm the behavioral manifes-
tations of these attributions and the emotions associated with them
(e.g., Betancourt & Blair, 1992; Weiner, 1980). Anger, for example,
is characterized by a high degree of certainty and a disposition to
approach (e.g., to “attack”) the perpetrator of the event in order to pun-
ish the person or obtain redress (Berkowitz, 1990). In contrast, fear
is characterized by uncertainty and a disposition to avoid the situa-
tion that gave rise to it (Tiedens & Linton, 2001). In the present con-
text, these considerations suggest that consumers who attribute a ser-
vice failure to a feature of the situation that was under the provider's
control may experience anger, whereas those who attribute it to an
unstable feature of the situation may experience uncertainty and
anxiety.
Emotions have both a feeling component and a cognitive compo-
nent (Wyer, 2004; Wyer, Clore, & Isbell, 1999). Consequently, it is often
difficult to separate the effects of the feelings that people experience
from the effects of the cognitions that accompany them. The present
research was not concerned with the effects of the cognitive appraisal
of a service failure on the emotions it elicits. Rather, it investigated the
effect of the feelings that individuals happen to be experiencing for
reasons that have nothing to do with a service failure can affect their
disposition to complain about the failure and their patronage inten-
tions. Although the effects of emotions on judgments and behavior
have been previously investigated (for a review, see So et al., 2015), a
consideration of these effects in the present context raises issues that
have rarely been investigated.
Of particular relevance to the present concerns is the appraisal-
tendency framework proposed by Lerner and Keltner (2001) and Han
et al. (2007). According to their formulation, features of the cogni-
tive appraisal that stimulate an emotion can carry over to situations
in which the emotion is elicited, leading the later situation to be inter-
preted in terms of these features. Thus, the subjective experience of an
emotion serves as a prime, activating concepts that influence the inter-
pretation of a new situation to which they are applicable and a behav-
ioral disposition that is associated with this interpretation. For exam-
ple, previous research has found that when participants were induced
to feel angry in one situation, these feelings elicited a motive to blame
that carried over to other unrelated situations (Quigley & Tedeschi,
1996). Similarly, incidental fear can elicit feelings of uncertainty that
influence consumers’ willingness to make a choice in an unrelated sit-
uation they encounter later (Coleman, Williams, Morales, & White,
2017).
These considerations have implications for the effect of emotions
on responses to a service failure. If the perception that another person
has been responsible for one's misfortune has become associated with
feelings of anger, concepts associated with these feelings are likely to
be reactivated in a later situation to which they are applicable. These
concepts, in turn, could influence the interpretation of this situation
and the behavior that results from it. Thus, the anger that happens to
be experienced at the time a service failure occurs might influence the
interpretation of the events surrounding the service failure and the dis-
position to complain about it. In contrast, if a fear-evoking experience
has elicited a disposition to avoid the situation, and if concepts asso-
ciated with this disposition are salient at the time a service failure is
encountered, these concepts could give rise to avoidance behavior in
this situation as well.
SU ET AL .
In summary:
H1: The experience of incidental anger at the time individuals
encounter a service failure will increase the likelihood of com-
plaining about the failure whereas the experience of incidental
fear at the time the failure is experienced will decrease this like-
lihood.
To reiterate, Hypothesis 1 assumes that the effects of emotions
on responses to a service failure are mediated by the effects of con-
cepts associated with these emotions on cognitive appraisals of the
failure situation and perceptions of the reasons for its occurrence
(Lerner & Keltner, 2001). If this is so, the appraisal-relevant con-
cepts associated with an emotion could affect the interpretation of
not only an event that one personally experiences but also an event
that occurs to someone else. Defensive attribution theory (Shaver,
1970) suggests that when observers witness a negative event in a
context that is personally relevant, they assign responsibility to the
perpetrator of the event rather than the victim. The perception of
relevance, in turn, is influenced by similarity between the circum-
stances of the person involved and the observer (Burger, 1981). In
the service encounters, observers could include both (a) other cus-
tomers who are involved in the same service setting and (b) individ-
uals who simply learn about the incident through social media (e.g.,
online review). They clearly share situational similarity with the suffer-
ing customer in a service failure. To this extent, incidental anger and
fear might influence the interpretation of not only a service failure
that one personally encounters but also a failure that one happens to
observe.
Of course, people who observe a service failure that occurs to oth-
ers are unlikely to complain themselves. If they attribute the failure
to the service provider, however, they may decrease their intention
to use the service again. Prior research has confirmed that attribu-
tions of blame to a service provider will decrease observers’ likelihood
of patronizing the provider in the future (Wan, Chan, & Su, 2011). If
this is so, and if incidental anger is associated with appraisals of indi-
vidual control, it should decrease observers’ likelihood of patroniz-
ing the provider. Correspondingly, if incidental fear is associated with
appraisals of uncertainty and situational control, it might increase this
disposition relative to conditions in which this fear was not experi-
enced.
H2: The attribution of responsibility for a service failure that occurs
to another person will be affected by the anger and fear that
one personally experiences at the time the failure is observed.
Specifically, anger will decrease the likelihood of patronizing the
provider in the future whereas the experience of incidental fear
at the time the failure is observed will increase this disposition.
These considerations raise an alternative possibility that has not
typically been considered. That is, the effect of an emotion on
responses to a service failure might not be mediated by a cognitive
appraisal at all but rather, might reflect a conditioned response to the
emotion that occurs automatically, with little if any cognitive delibera-
tion. Fear, for example, might elicit an automatic avoidance response
(Foa & Kozak, 1986) whereas anger might elicit aggression (Averill,
3
1983) and these responses could occur without a deliberate analysis
of the situation at hand.
To evaluate this possibility, we capitalized on evidence that the
effect incidental emotions on the cognitive deliberation involved con-
sumer decision making and judgment is diminished under cognitive
load (Drolet & Luce, 2004; Kron, Schul, Cohen, & Hassin, 2010). Specif-
ically, participants in some conditions were put under cognitive load
by asking them to keep some extraneous material in mind while they
responded to information describing a service failure. If the effects
of incidental anger and fear on these responses are mediated by con-
scious cognitive appraisals of the service failure situation, putting
participants under cognitive load should eliminate these effects. If,
contrary to expectations, the effects of emotions reflect conditioned
approach and avoidance responses to the situation, inducing cognitive
load should have little effect. The former was expected.
H3: Putting participants under cognitive load when they consider a
service failure situation will reduce the effects of the emotions
they are experiencing on responses to the situation.
3 PRELIMINARY STUDIES
Two field studies, noted briefly earlier in this article, provided pre-
liminary support for the correlational relationship between incidental
emotions of anger or fear and complaint behavior.
3.1 Responses to anger
On September 10, 2012, the Japanese government announced that
it had purchased the Senkaku Islands from “private owners.” This
announcement provoked widespread anger among Chinese people.
Two independent judges coded people's posts posted on the major Chi-
nese chatting website (www.baidu.com) regarding to this news dur-
ing the first week after the announcement, by categorizing each of the
posts based the major emotional type that it involved. The researchers
used the coding scheme developed by Richins (1997) for such cate-
gorization. The intercoder agreement rate was 78%. The results indi-
cated that anger is the major elicited emotion (80.97% for anger; other
elicited emotions included sadness, disgust, etc.).
The effect of incidental emotions on consumers’ complaint behavior
was inferred from the monthly number of complaint letters received
from Beijing residents to the Beijing Consumer Association (2011,
2012) during the month that the incident occurred and the months
both preceded it and followed it. These frequencies were compared to
the number of complaints received in identical months of the year pre-
ceding the incident (2011). To remove the effect of year-to-year fluc-
tuation, the number in September 2011 was adjusted according to the
ratio of the average number of monthly complaint letters received in
2012 to that in 2011.
The results are summarized in Table 1. Consistent with the pre-
diction, there was a significant rise in the number of complaint let-
ters in September 2012, with 1,605 letters of complaint received in
September 2012 compared with only 1,374 in September 2011. Also,
4 SU ET AL .
TA B L E 1 Comparison of number of consumer complaints (anger condition)—preliminary studies
Number of Complaint Letters August September
Year 2011 (Adjusted)* 1,313 1,374
Year 2012 1,129 1,605
∗
Ratio of monthly average in Year 2012 to that in Year 2011: 0.88.
the ratios of number of complaint letters in September to August and
to October are consistently higher in year 2012, than those in year
2011. These comparisons consistently indicate that incidental anger
increases complaints toward service provider.
3.2 Responses to fear
The Great East Japan Earthquake that caused major damage to the
Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant on March 15th, 2011, led Chinese cit-
izens to panic over the radiation leakage and to stock up on supplies in
anticipation of food shortages. Independent judges’ coding of people's
emotional responses to this event during the first week after its occur-
rence (using the same coding scheme; interjudge agreement = 73%)
indicated that fear is the major elicited emotion (52.97% for fear; other
elicited emotions included sad, curious, etc.).
A similar procedure was used in evaluating the effects of earth-
quake disaster. In this case, however, the month in which the precipi-
tating event occurred (February, the month of Chinese Lunar New Year
in which many celebrations occur) was excluded.
These results, shown in Table 2, indicate that a substantial decrease
in consumer complaints during the month the incident occurred, with
1,220 complaint letters received in March 2011 (adjusted by year-to-
year fluctuation) compared to 1,873 in March 2012. Similarly, the ratio
of number of complaint letters received in March to April is much lower
in year 2011 than that in year 2012, indicating a significant drop in
complaint intention among the society.
In summary, the preliminary studies provided initial evidence
that consumer complaint behavior changed in opposite directions in
response to events that elicited widespread anger and fear. Because
complaint letters only represent a small proportion of total complaint
cases, these studies provide a conservative test of the hypothesis. The
different data sources for the independent and dependent variables
also decreased the possibility of demand effects. Finally, the longitu-
dinal nature of the dependent variable and the field setting demon-
strated the strong external validity of the effect.
4 EXPERIMENT 1
Experiment 1 investigated the effects of incidental anger and fear on
complaint behavior in a laboratory setting in which participants per-
sonally experienced a service failure.
4.1 Method
One hundred Hong Kong university students (30 men; M age = 20.99,
SD = 2.48) participated in exchange for a small monetary incentive. Par-
ticipants were told that there were two unrelated studies. Under the
Ratio Ratio
October Sep/Aug Sep/Oct
1,273 1.05 1.08
1,048 1.42 1.53
guise of a “memory test” (Lerner, Gonzalez, Small, & Fischhoff, 2003),
participants were asked to describe a past experience that made them
very angry (anger conditions), an experience that made them very fear-
ful (fear conditions) or the activities they typically engaged in dur-
ing the evening (control conditions). They then reported how angry or
fearful they felt along scales of one (not at all) to seven (very strong)
(Dunn & Hoegg, 2014; Lerner & Keltner, 2001).
In the second task, participants provided feedback on an online
ordering system used by a local restaurant. They were shown pictures
of several foods and beverages, together with name and price informa-
tion and asked to place their orders by clicking a button. However, they
experienced a 10-s delay after pressing the check-out button. A pretest
(N = 50) confirmed that participants had a stronger perception of ser-
vice failure under 10-s delay conditions than under no-delay conditions
(M delay = 7.72 vs. M no-delay = 2.80, respectively; F(1, 48) = 92.49;
P < 0.001).
Participants then wrote down their thoughts and feelings about
the system and reported their intentions to complain by respond-
ing to a single item (i.e., “You have strong intention to complain to
the restaurant”) along three measurement scales from 1 (strongly dis-
agree/definitely not/never) to 7 (strongly agree/definitely will/always);
𝛼 = 0.98. Finally, they reported their agreement with three items con-
cerning the cause of the technical problems (e.g., “The restaurant is
responsible for the technical problems of the system”) along scales
from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree); 𝛼 = 0.76.
4.2 Results
4.2.1 Manipulation check
Participants reported being more angry in the anger conditions
(M = 4.58, SD = 1.89) than in the fear conditions (M = 2.22, SD = 1.07;
F(1, 95) = 54.09, P < 0.001, 𝜂p2 = 0.38) and the control conditions
(M = 1.24, SD = 0.50; F(1, 95) = 109.68, P < 0.001, 𝜂p2 = 0.61), and
reported being more fearful in the fear conditions (M = 4.39, SD = 1.82)
than in the anger conditions (M = 2.29, SD = 1.27; F(1, 95) = 40.65,
P < 0.001, 𝜂p2 = 0.31) and the control conditions (M = 1.33, SD = 0.54;
F(1, 95) = 88.83, P < 0.001, 𝜂p2 = 0.57).
4.2.2 Complaint intention
Participants’ intention to complain to the service provider was signifi-
cantly greater in anger conditions (M = 4.42, SD = 1.21) than in control
conditions (M = 3.61, SD = 1.23; F(1, 95) = 6.81, P = 0.011, 𝜂p2 = 0.10)
and was significantly lower in fear conditions (M = 2.85, SD = 1.29) than
in control conditions (M = 3.61; SD = 1.23; F(1, 95) = 6.10, P = 0.015,
𝜂p2 = 0.08).
SU ET AL .
TA B L E 2 Comparison of number of consumer complaints (fear condition)—preliminary studies
Number of Complaint Letters February March
Year 2011 (Adjusted)* – 1,220
Year 2012 – 1,873
∗
Ratio of monthly average in Year 2012 to that in Year 2011: 0.88.
4.2.3 Complaint behavior
Two research assistants coded each listed thought as positive (e.g.,
“The menu is colorful and eye-catchy”), negative (e.g., “The process-
ing time is long”) or neutral (e.g., “Maybe you can include an option of
not ordering anything”). All negative comments were treated as com-
plaints. The intercoder agreement rate was 87.6%.
The number of complaints generated by each participant was sig-
nificantly greater in anger conditions (M = 2.84, SD = 1.24) than in
control conditions (M = 2.00, SD = 1.37; F(1, 95) = 7.25, P = 0.008,
𝜂p2 = 0.10), and was significantly lower in fear conditions (M = 1.33,
SD = 1.11) than in control conditions (F(1, 95) = 4.73, P = 0.032,
𝜂p2 = 0.07). Analyses of the proportion of complaints that participants
listed (relative to the total number of comments) yielded similar con-
clusions. That is, the proportion of complaints was greater in anger
conditions (M = 0.83, SD = 0.22) than in control conditions (M = 0.63,
SD = 0.28; F(1, 95) = 7.36, P = 0.008, 𝜂p2 = 0.14). Whereas, the pro-
portion of complaints in fear conditions was much lower (M = 0.48,
SD = 0.35) (F(1, 95) = 4.91, P = 0.029, 𝜂p2 = 0.06).
4.2.4 Attributions
Participants’ tendency to blame the service provider was greater in
anger conditions (M = 5.10, SD = 0.91) than in control conditions
(M = 4.50, SD = 1.10; F(1, 95) = 4.93, P = 0.029, 𝜂p2 = 0.09) but lower
in fear conditions (M = 3.90, SD = 1.16) than in control conditions
(M = 4.50, SD = 1.10; F(1, 95) = 5.16, P = 0.025, 𝜂p2 = 0.07).
A bootstrapping analysis confirmed that attributions of blame to
service provider mediated the effect of incidental emotion on com-
plaint intention. Based on 5,000 samples, the indirect effect of attri-
butions was significant (95% CI from 0.0335 to 0.3523).
4.3 Discussion
The effects of incidental emotions on responses to an actual failure
(study 1) provide converging support for the hypothesis. As noted ear-
lier, however, these emotions could have similar effects on attribu-
tions of responsibility for outcomes that others experience (Burger,
1981). To this extent, the effects of incidental anger and fear on par-
ticipants’ attributions for a service failure they observe should be sim-
ilar to the effects that occur when they personally experience the fail-
ure. These observations could occur in two conditions. In some cases,
people might observe a service failure that occurs to another cus-
tomer in the same situation they are in. In this case, observers might
interpret the failure as personally relevant because they are using the
same service provider. In other conditions, however, consumers might
encounter a service failure in the social media (e.g., on YouTube) with-
5
Ratio Ratio
April (Mar/Feb) (Mar/Apr)
1,369 – 0.89
1,578 – 1.19
out being present in the situation. In this case, the failure is personally
irrelevant. The effects of emotions on attributions in both situations
were examined.
5 EXPERIMENT 2A
According to Hypothesis 2, incidental emotions can affect the interpre-
tation of not only a service failure that one personally encounters but
also a failure that one happens to observe. Experiment 2A determined
whether incidental anger and fear would influence participants’ attri-
butions of a failure that occurs in a situation in which they imagined
being personally involved.
5.1 Method
One hundred five participants from the United States (37 men, M
age = 34.18, SD = 14.40) were recruited from Amazon Mechanical
Turk (MTurk) and were assigned to anger, fear, and control conditions.
To prime different emotions, the same recall task used in study 1 was
employed. Then, in a second study, participants were asked to imag-
ine that they were visiting a travel agency and saw another customer
not being serviced after waiting for 20 min. After reading the scenario,
participants made attributions along the same scale used in study 1
(𝛼 = 0.89).
5.2 Results
5.2.1 Manipulation check
Participants’ report of both their anger and fear varied over conditions
as expected. Participants reported being more angry in anger condi-
tions (M = 4.06, SD = 1.93) than in either control (M = 2.06, SD = 1.48;
F(1, 103) = 23.83, P < 0.001) or fear conditions (M = 1.89, SD = 1.64;
F(1, 103) = 29.38, P < 0.001). In addition, participants reported being
more fearful in fear conditions (M = 3.44, SD = 1.70) than in either con-
trol (M = 1.58, SD = 1.00; F(1, 103) = 27.72, P < 0.001) or anger condi-
tions (M = 2.14, SD = 1.59; F(1, 103) = 14.15, P < 0.001).
5.2.2 Attributions
Attributions of responsibility to the service provider were greater in
anger conditions (M = 5.19, SD = 1.13) than in control conditions
(M = 4.51, SD = 1.36; F(1, 103) = 4.82, P = 0.030) but was significantly
lower in fear conditions (M = 3.71, SD = 1.36) than in control conditions
(F(1, 103) = 6.54, P = 0.012).
6 SU ET AL .
6 EXPERIMENT 2B
Experiment 2A determined that incidental emotions affect attribu-
tions of responsibility for a service failure that occurred in a situation in
which participants were present. Experiment 2B determined whether
these can be generalized to conditions in which the service failure hap-
pens to another customer in a situation in which observers are not
involved at all. To test the generality of the effects over different meth-
ods for priming incidental emotions (e.g., Lee & Andrade, 2011), a pro-
cedure developed by Rottenberg, Ray, and Gross (2007) was used to
manipulate incidental anger and fear.
6.1 Method
Eighty undergraduate students (22 men; M age = 20.43, SD = 3.08)
from a Hong Kong university participated in this study in exchange for
credit. Participants were told that they would participate in a “movie
showcase” and would view and evaluate two short movie clips. The
first clip was used to prime the target emotion using materials similar
to those employed by Rottenberg et al. (2007). That is, participants in
anger conditions watched a scene from My Bodyguard (Simon, Devlin,
Goldfarb, & Bill, 1980) and participants in fear conditions watched a
scene from Silence of the Lambs (Goetzman et al., 1991). In control con-
ditions, participants saw a clip of scenery.
Next, the participants watched a video. The film described a cus-
tomer in a camera shop who rented a camera but he discovered the
camera did not work after he paid and left. After watching the film, par-
ticipants reported their agreement with three items along a scale from
1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) “The shop assistant is respon-
sible for the accident captured in the video.” They then responded to
questions concerning the quality of the movie (e.g., filming technique,
lighting, etc.) and completed an emotion manipulation check.
6.2 Results
Participants reported being angrier in anger conditions (M
anger = 4.96, SD = 1.32) than in either control (M = 3.83, SD = 1.69; F(1,
74) = 6.71, P = 0.012, 𝜂p2 = 0.13) or fear conditions (M = 3.12, SD = 1.66;
F(1, 74) = 18.70, P < 0.001, 𝜂p2 = 0.28), and reported being more fearful
in fear conditions (M = 5.35, SD = 1.77) than in either control (M = 3.25,
SD = 1.68; F(1, 74) = 18.22, P < 0.001, 𝜂p2 = 0.09) or anger conditions
(M = 3.63, SD = 1.76; F(1, 74) = 12.97, P < 0.001, 𝜂p2 = 0.20). The effect
of incidental emotions on attributions of responsibility was significant
(F(2,74) = 10.33, P < 0.001). Attributions of responsibility to the shop
assistant were greater in anger conditions (M = 3.59, SD = 1.09) than
in control conditions (M = 3.00, SD = 0.90; F(1, 74) = 5.68, P = 0.020,
𝜂p2 = 0.09) but were less in fear conditions (M = 2.49, SD = 0.75) than in
control conditions (F(1, 74) = 4.18, P = 0.044, 𝜂p2 = 0.09).
7 EXPERIMENT 3
Experiments 1 and 2 supported the hypothesis that the impact of inci-
dental emotions on reactions to a failure is mediated by the influ-
ence of these emotions on attributions of responsibility for the fail-
ure's occurrence. Cognitive load has been used in several studies to dis-
tinguish between the effects of cognitive deliberation and the effects
of automatic responses to stimuli (Albarracín & Wyer, 2000; Gilbert,
1989; Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999). Putting participants under cognitive
load when they consider a service failure should prevent them from
engaging in the cognitive effort required to make these attributions
and should reduce the effects of the emotions they are experiencing
on responses to the situation.
Experiment 3 also examined the consequences of these attri-
butions. For example, if people attribute the failure to the service
provider, they may decrease their intention to use the service again.
Because “intentions to patronize” has significant marketing implica-
tions (Maxham, 1999; Smith & Bolton, 1998), intentions to patronize
were evaluated.
7.1 Method
Two hundred five Hong Kong undergraduate students (104 men; M
age = 21.70, SD = 2.87) participated in exchange for a small amount
of money. They were assigned to cells of a 3 (emotion conditions: anger
vs. fear vs. control) x 2 (cognitive load) design.
Anger, fear, and neutral emotions were primed as in Experiments 1
and 2A. Then, under the guise of a memory test, participants in high cog-
nitive load conditions were shown pictures of 12 products along with
their prices and were given 1 min to remember the price of each prod-
uct. They were told that they would be asked to recall the information
at the end of the study. Participants in the low cognitive load conditions
did not perform this task.
Then, in an ostensibly unrelated task, participants imagined that
they observed a restaurant customer fail to get a sea-view table that
he had requested earlier. After doing so, they reported their willing-
ness to patronize the restaurant along three scales from 1 (strongly
disagree/definitely not/very unlikely) to 7 (strongly agree/definite will/very
likely); 𝛼 = 0.94. Their attribution of responsibility was then assessed
using four items (e.g., “The restaurant is responsible for the incident
you observed”). Finally, participants in high cognitive load conditions
recalled the prices of the products they had seen earlier. The average
rate of accurate recall was 28.35% and there were no significant dif-
ferences across three emotion conditions.
7.2 Results
7.2.1 Manipulation check
Participants reported being angrier in anger conditions (M = 3.83,
SD = 2.11) than in fear conditions (M = 2.60, SD = 1.81; F(1,
199) = 14.40, P < 0.001, 𝜂p2 = 0.09) and control conditions (M = 2.26,
SD = 1.70; F(1, 199) = 23.36, P < 0.001, 𝜂p2 = 0.15). They reported being
more fearful in fear conditions (M = 3.79, SD = 1.93) than in anger con-
ditions (M = 2.35, SD = 1.73; F(1, 199) = 22.46, P < 0.001, 𝜂p2 = 0.14) and
control condition (M = 2.18, SD = 1.59; F(1, 199) = 28.55, P < 0.001,
𝜂p2 = 0.17).
SU ET AL .
TA B L E 3 Consumer reactions to service failure as a function of inci-
dental emotion and cognitive load—Experiment 3
Incidental Emotions
Anger Neutral Fear
Attribution to Service Provider
Low cognitive load 4.51a (1.07) 4.05b (0.81) 3.64c (0.71)
High cognitive load 4.04b (0.76) 4.03b (0.91) 4.08b (0.74)
Patronage Intention
Low cognitive load 3.03a (1.03) 3.63b (1.10) 4.11c (0.89)
High cognitive load 3.57b (1.12) 3.55b (1.17) 3.61b (0.92)
Note. Numbers in parentheses indicate standard deviations. Means with
unlike subscripts are significantly different at P < 0.05.
7.2.2 Attributions
Analyses of responsibility attributions also yielded a significant effect
of emotion conditions (F(2, 195) = 3.99; P = 0.020) that was quali-
fied by an interaction of emotion conditions and cognitive load (F(2,
195) = 4.84; P = 0.009, 𝜂p2 = 0.05). Table 3 shows that when cognitive
load was low, participants assigned more blame to the service provider
under anger conditions (M = 4.51, SD = 1.07) than under control con-
ditions (M = 4.05, SD = 0.81; F(1, 195) = 17.43, P = 0.024, 𝜂p2 = 0.06)
but assigned less blame to the provider in fear conditions (M = 3.64,
SD = 0.71) than in control conditions (F(1, 195) = 4.18, P = 0.042,
𝜂p2 = 0.07). This effect disappeared in high cognitive load conditions,
however (4.04, 4.08, and 4.03 in anger, fear, and control conditions,
respectively, F < 1).
7.2.3 Intentions to patronize
Participants’ willingness to patronize the restaurant is summarized
in Table 3 as a function of cognitive load and emotion conditions.
The effect of emotion conditions was significant (F(2, 195) = 6.69;
P = 0.002) but was qualified by an interaction of emotion conditions
and cognitive load (F(2, 195) = 3.21; P = 0.043, 𝜂p2 = 0.04). When partic-
ipants were not under cognitive load, they had significantly less inten-
tions to visit the restaurant in anger conditions (M = 3.03, SD = 1.03)
than in control conditions (M = 3.63, SD = 1.10; F(1, 195) = 6.16;
P = 0.014, 𝜂p2 = 0.08), but had greater intentions to do so in fear con-
ditions (M = 4.11, SD = 0.89) than in control conditions (M = 3.63,
SD = 1.10; F(1, 195) = 3.92; P = 0.049, 𝜂p2 = 0.05). In high cognitive
load conditions, however, participants did not differ in their intentions
(3.57, 3.61, and 3.65 in anger, fear, and control conditions, respectively,
F < 1).
Note that in the absence of cognitive load, fear appeared to increase
the intention to patronize the restaurant relative to control conditions.
This could indicate that in the absence of any specific emotion, par-
ticipants were inclined to react negatively to the restaurant and that
inducing fear decreased the magnitude of this negative reaction.
7.2.4 Mediation
A moderated mediation analysis (model 8, Hayes, 2013) revealed that
in the low cognitive load conditions, consumer's attribution for the
observed service failure mediated the effect of incidental emotion
7
on observer's purchase intention (95% CI from –0.2322 to –0.0342).
In high cognitive load conditions, however, the mediating effect of
attributions was not evident (based on 5,000 samples, 95% CI from
–0.0383 to 0.0603).
7.3 Discussion
The effect of incidental emotions on observers’ purchase intentions
disappeared when participants were prevented from engaging in the
cognitive appraisals associated with the emotions they are experienc-
ing. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the effects
of incidental emotions on reactions to an undesirable service situation
do not simply reflect previously acquired aggression and avoidance
responses that were conditioned to these emotions and elicited spon-
taneously. Rather, the judgments that participants made required con-
scious cognitive appraisals of the situation and attributions of respon-
sibility for the failure that occurred.
8 GENERAL DISCUSSION
Consumers’ incidental emotional state at the time they encounter a
service failure can affect their likelihood of complaining about the
failure and their willingness to patronize the service provider again.
Whereas incidental anger increases consumers’ disposition to com-
plain about a service failure, incidental fear leads them to react less
negatively to the service failure than they otherwise would. This was
true both when a service failure was personally experienced, and when
it was only observed. These effects are mediated by the impact of inci-
dental emotions on cognitive appraisals of the situation.
Note that student samples were used in experiments conducted in
lab settings with better control. Although student samples cannot rep-
resent the consumer population as a whole, the preliminary study illus-
trated the effect in a real business setting and Experiment 2A examined
the effect in an online sample that better represents the general popu-
lation.
Although other research provides evidence that incidental emo-
tions can influence the appraisal of a situation (So et al., 2015), the
present experiments are the first to demonstrate that incidental anger
and fear influence consumers’ reactions to a service failure. Previous
research, however, has assumed that consumers base their decision
to complain about a service failure on features of the service expe-
rience (e.g., Bitner, 1990; Maxham & Netemeyer, 2002; Wan, 2013).
The present research is consistent with this assumption but extends
its implications. That is, it indicates that concepts activated by the emo-
tions that people happen to be experiencing at the time they encounter
a service failure can influence their complaint behavior.
Incidental emotions have received attention in past research (So
et al., 2015). However, this research has focused on the impact of inci-
dental anger and fear on risk perceptions (Han et al., 2007; Lerner
& Keltner, 2001; Lerner et al., 2003). The present research is the
first to investigate both the incidental anger and fear on consumer
and observer reactions to service failures. In addition, because anger
is associated with heuristic processing (Bodenhausen, Sheppard, &
Kramer, 1994), cognitive load might seem unlikely to influence its
8 SU ET AL .
impact on judgments and behavior. In the conditions constructed, how-
ever, cognitive load attenuated the impact of both anger and fear on
consumer attributions.
Finally, previous research has typically focused on consumers’ reac-
tions to a service failure that they personally experience (e.g., Bitner,
1990; Tax, Brown, & Chandrashekaran, 1998; Wan, 2013; Wan et al.,
2011). The evidence that people's emotions affect their interpretation
of the service failures that others encounter, and that this interpreta-
tion affects their own likelihood of patronizing the service provider,
could have practical implications. That is, service providers may need
to think of ways to restore not only victims’ confidence in them but
also observers’ confidence as well. That is, offering compensation or
an apology to the victims may not always be sufficient to restore confi-
dence in persons who have observed or otherwise become aware of the
service failure, particularly if the failure is communicated in the social
media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
Prior research (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003) indicated
that different power levels were associated with the incidental emo-
tions of anger and fear. That is, people with high power tend to become
angry easily, whereas people with low power more easily become fear-
ful. It is conceivable that people with high power are relatively more
likely to blame the service provider in service failures that they experi-
ence or observe. Several factors (e.g., social status, company–customer
relationships) can lead to different levels of consumer power. To this
extent, the proposed investigations suggest service failure recovery
strategies that managers might use to deal with different types of con-
sumers.
Furthermore, many studies have found that both music and color
can arouse different emotions (e.g., Schulkind, Hennis, & Rubin, 1999;
Valdez & Mehrabian, 1994). Based on similar logic, it is possible that
environmental settings such as music and color would lead to con-
sumer emotions arousal and this would potentially influence their per-
ception toward a service failure. This would be an interesting direction
for future research.
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10 SU ET AL .

APPENDIX 1
Phrasing of the Questions and Scales Used for the Reported Findings

Experiment 1

Manipulation Check for Incidental Emotion Priming

• How much do you feel angry now? (1 = not at all, 7 = very strong)
• How much do you feel fearful now? (1 = not at all, 7 = very strong)

Complaint Intention

• You have strong intention to complain to the restaurant. (1 = strongly disagree/definitely not/very unlikely; 7 = strongly agree/definitely will/very likely)

Attributions

• The restaurant is responsible for the technical problem of the system. (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)
• You blame the restaurant for the technical problem of the system. (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)
• The technical problem of the online system is due to uncontrollable factors. (R) (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)

Experiments 2A and 2B

Manipulation Check for Incidental Emotion Priming

• How much do you feel angry now? (1 = not at all, 7 = very strong)
• How much do you feel fearful now? (1 = not at all, 7 = very strong)

Attributions

• The travel agency (shop assistant) is responsible for the problem that the customer encountered. (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)
• You blame the travel agency (shop assistant) for the problem that the customer encountered. (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)
• The problem that the customer encountered is due to some uncontrollable factors. (R) (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)

Experiment 3

Manipulation Check for Incidental Emotion Priming

• How much do you feel angry now? (1 = not at all, 7 = very strong)
• How much do you feel fearful now? (1 = not at all, 7 = very strong)

Intentions to Patronize

• You will patronize the restaurant again in the future. (1 = strongly disagree/definitely not/very unlikely; 7 = strongly agree/definitely will/very likely)

Attributions

• The restaurant is responsible for the incident you observed. (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)
• You blame the restaurant for the incident you observed. (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)
• The incident was beyond the restaurant's control. (R) (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)
• The incident was due to uncontrollable factors. (R) (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)

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