Customers' Reactions to Waiting: Effects of the Presence of 'Fellow Sufferers' in the Waiting Room.

In a field experiment, Social Facilitation Theory (SFT) and Affiliation Theory (AT) were applied to waiting. SFT predicts the effects of 'waiting alone' or 'waiting with others' on the waiting experience. As predicted, when the wait is long, waiting with others makes it less acceptable. Under these conditions, waiting times are also less accurately estimated. AT prescribes the conditions under which one shows preference to wait with others; a preference which proves to be stronger when one feels anxious or uncertain during the wait. These results imply that though customers may prefer to wait with others, the effects of group waiting can be detrimental to the acceptability judgment and interfere with the estimation of the waiting time duration. This has implications for the design of waiting rooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Advances in Consumer Research is the property of Association for Consumer Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)