Consumers’ attributions and emotional responses to negative expectancy disconfirmation: Anger and regret

This study examines the process by which consumer dissatisfaction is formed under negative expectancy disconfirmation with respect to consumer attributions and emotions. Although previous studies have demonstrated that negative expectancy disconfirmation can induce dissatisfaction of consumers, few studies have provided specific discussions on the mechanism underlying such dissatisfaction. This study focuses on consumers' cognitive and psychological responses to negative expectancy disconfirmation and examines the process by which consumer dissatisfaction is formed. For this, the study employs consumer attributions and emotional responses as antecedent variables for consumer dissatisfaction. Specifically, the study considers internal and external attributions as consumer attributions and anger and regret as their emotions. It further examines the mechanism underlying consumer dissatisfaction and behavior. The results indicate that under negative expectancy disconfirmation, external attributions were more likely to induce anger than regret, whereas internal attributions were more likely to induce regret than anger. Consumers’ dissatisfaction and behaviors, such as complaining and switching, were more likely to be influenced by anger than by regret.