Question 14.54

14.54 Restaurant ambiance and consumer behavior.

There have been numerous studies investigating the effects of restaurant ambiance on consumer behavior. One study investigated the effects of musical genre on consumer spending.10 At a single high-end restaurant in England over a three-week period, there were a total of 141 participants; 49 of them were subjected to background pop music while dining, 44 to background classical music, and 48 to no background music. For each participant, the total food bill (in British pounds), adjusted for time spent dining, was recorded. The following table summarizes the means and standard deviations.

Background
music
Pop 21.912 49 2.627
Classical 24.130 44 2.243
None 21.697 48 3.332
Total 22.531 141 2.969
  1. Plot the means versus the type of background music. Does there appear to be a difference in spending?
  2. Is it reasonable to assume that the variances are equal? Explain.
  3. The statistic is 10.62. Give the degrees of freedom and either an approximate (from a table) or an exact (from software) -value. What do you conclude?
  4. Refer back to part (a). Without doing any formal analysis, describe the pattern in the means that is likely responsible for your conclusion in part (c).
  5. To what extent do you think the results of this study can be generalized to other settings? Give reasons for your answer.