An Environmental Psychology Approach to Consumers’ Choices of Shopping Centres

The previous chapters have investigated shoppers’ choices of shopping centres by considering the attributes of shopping centres and motivations of shoppers. In this chapter we explore how managers can manipulate atmospheric stimuli (using an exemplar stimulus) with the objective of increasing shoppers’ approach behaviours such as spending. Despite substantial research (see summary in Turley and Milliman, 2000), the processes of perception of stimuli and conversion into actions are still not fully understood. This chapter addresses the mechanism by which perceptions of a stimulus act to change consumers’ images of a shopping centre and/or its retail stores and products and thus increase pleasure and/or arousal emotions. If these effects can be further understood, management might be able to design atmospheric stimuli to increase: (i) arousal (e.g. using fast tempo music), (ii) pleasure (e.g. by pleasant video images) or (iii) the image of a shopping centre or stores (e.g. by providing relevant audio-visual information). In this chapter we explore whether the effects of stimuli can be linked to approach variables such as shoppers’ spending. The exemplar stimulus for this chapter was a trial of Captive Audience Network (CAN) screens at the Delphi Centre, an in-town, sub-regional shopping centre in the South East of England (not its real name).