Hedonic and Utilitarian Outcomes of Website Social Presence: The Impacts of Framing and Time Constraints

It is now generally recognized that online shopping has both utilitarian as well as hedonic components. In this research we created and tested a model in which perceived social presence resulted in enjoyment (hedonic component) as mediated by involvement, and alternatively perceived social presence resulted in effectiveness (utilitarian component) as mediated by trust. All paths in the model were confirmed. Involvement was found to have a medium effect on enjoyment and trust had a medium effect on effectiveness. In addition, the impact of whether a task is framed to be utilitarian or hedonic in nature was tested. While questionnaire data revealed no significant differences, eye-tracking data indicated that users spent more time viewing hedonic versus utilitarian zones. Finally, time constraints in website viewing were examined and users in an unlimited time group (versus 5 seconds of viewing time) experienced higher levels of involvement, enjoyment, trust and effectiveness toward the website