Cognition and affect: A factors combination in clients dissatisfied with restaurants

Abstract

On the basis of an extensive literature review of the principal theories that explain consumer dissatisfaction, we try to analyse the effect of a set of cognitive and affective variables on dissatisfaction. Cognitive variables examined were performance, expectations, disconfirmation, causal attributions and inequity. Negative affects were considered as emotional variables. We developed an empirical research to examine customer dissatisfaction with restaurants. The results indicate that the best combination of variables to estimate dissatisfaction judgements is performance-inequity-norms disconfirmation-attributions. Therefore, dissatisfaction has a greater cognitive content because negative affects have no significant influence. © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.