Effects of service setting and other consumers’ age on the service perceptions of young consumers

Abstract

Services are often delivered in settings where many consumers are present at the same time, yet the issue of how other consumers affect service perceptions has received little attention. We study young adults’ response to fellow consumers who are middle-aged and old, testing predictions based on recent research suggesting that stereotypes are context dependent, and that stereotypes of older adults vary depending on the person attributes considered. Varying the age of the other consumers and service settings we find that the presence of older consumers affects young adults’ attitude to the service as well as their patronage intentions. Young consumers’ attitude to the service deteriorated in the presence of older consumers for services requiring physical attributes, but this was less so for services requiring personal expressive attributes.