The Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) Paradigm as a Guiding Principle in Environmental Psychology: Comparison of its Usage in Consumer Behavior and Organizational Culture and Leadership Theory

The Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) paradigm developed by Mehrabian and Russell in 1974 is a guiding principle of environmental psychology theory and transferred from consumer behavior to organizational behavior and leadership studies. The S-O-R model suggests that an organism’s internal feelings or Behavior (person) are caused by the external environment (stimuli). This internal processing of the activation can be conscious or unconscious and includes perceptions and environmental interpretations that influence someone’s feelings. This influence further triggers an emotion that leads to a response and decision-making. The S-O-R paradigm is a leading concept in multiple global management theories and is, therefore, a model mainly developed and used in various research fields. This paper presents an analysis in the form of a scoping literature review of prior and current research dimensions of the S-O-R model in branding and consumer behavior theory. It compares the usage of the model in branding theory to the usage in organizational Behavior and leadership theory. Besides a summary of similarities of the same model used in both research fields, three main differencing correlations and characteristics have been developed and described. The main differencing factors are the motivation and aim of usage of the model itself, the process and relation of the stimuli-organism-reaction stages, and certain moderating variables and influencing factors throughout the decision-making process, such as marketing, branding on the one hand or leadership and organizational culture on the other hand.