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Same, Same but Different. How Pictures Influence Emotional Responses of Users with Different Web Search Behaviours

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Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2013

Abstract

Especially in the information-intensive tourism industry, searching for information is of major importance. In the context of online information search, a distinction between goal-directed and experiential searchers can be made. These two types of searchers have shown to differ in their perception of websites. As the notion “pictures are worth a thousand words” suggests, images are heavily used in advertising to convey information and trigger emotions. Besides the content of the picture, its low-level features have the power to shape the emotional quality. The purpose of this study is to link web search behaviour with emotional responses provoked by these stimulatory attributes. Following a between-subjects design, people were manipulated by randomly assigning them to one of the two search strategies. Results show that users with different web search strategies differ in their emotional responses initiated by pictures.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Austrian National Tourist Office (Österreich Werbung) for providing all pictorial stimuli used in this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Service Marketing and Tourism, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria

    Gerhard Mariarcher & Anke Schneider

  2. Institute for Innovation in Business and Social Research, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

    Amata Ring

Authors
  1. Gerhard Mariarcher
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  2. Amata Ring
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  3. Anke Schneider
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gerhard Mariarcher .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Faculty of Communication Sciences, Università della Svizzera italiana, Via Giuseppe Buffi 13, Lugano, 6904, Switzerland

    Lorenzo Cantoni

  2. , College of Merchandising,, University of North Texas, Union Circle 1155, Denton, 76203-1100, Texas, USA

    Zheng (Phil) Xiang

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Mariarcher, G., Ring, A., Schneider, A. (2013). Same, Same but Different. How Pictures Influence Emotional Responses of Users with Different Web Search Behaviours. In: Cantoni, L., Xiang, Z. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2013. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36309-2_32

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