Disentangling Psychological Congestion in the Exhibition Event: An Experimental Inquiry of the Integrated Model

Crowding is a powerful factor that overwhelms human beings. For the exhibition industry, minimizing psychological congestion under the condition that the established visitors cannot be reduced is the core concern. Based on stimulus overload theory and arousal attribution theory, we established a 2 (exhibition environment: outdoors vs. indoors) × 2 (the order of visit: orderliness vs. disorderliness) between-subject scenario experimental design in a high-tech exhibition scenario to investigate the effect of exhibition conditions on tourists’ crowding perceptions. Several novel findings were obtained: 1) the exhibition environment and exhibition order affect individual perception of crowding; 2) crowding perception fully mediates only the relationship between the exhibition environment and emotion; 3) personality (introversion vs. extroversion) moderates visitors’ perceptions of crowding; and 4) visitors’ emotions fully mediate the relationship between perceived crowding and perceived value. This article provides a systematic theoretical analytical framework for understanding the phenomenon of crowding from a social and environmental psychology perspective and has practical implications for crowding management and visitor experience value optimization in the exhibition sector.