Disconfirmationsteori

Disconfirmationsteori, or expectancy-disconfirmation theory, is a framework used in consumer behavior and decision sciences to explain how satisfaction and dissatisfaction arise from a comparison between expected performance and actual experience of a product, service, or outcome. It posits that how people feel after an encounter depends on how their perceptions of performance align with their prior expectations.

The central idea involves three elements: expectations (or standards) before use, perceived performance after use, and the resulting disconfirmation, which is the difference between perceived performance and expectations. Positive disconfirmation occurs when performance exceeds expectations, leading to higher satisfaction. Negative disconfirmation arises when performance falls short, leading to dissatisfaction. If performance aligns with expectations, disconfirmation is zero, often yielding neutral or moderate satisfaction.

Historically, the theory developed within marketing and consumer research in the 1960s–1980s and has become a standard tool for understanding customer satisfaction and service quality. It is widely applied to evaluate products, services, and experiences, frequently measured through surveys that assess pre-use expectations and post-use perceptions to derive disconfirmation.

Criticisms focus on how difficult it is to measure true expectations, which can be influenced by prior experiences, marketing, and situational factors. The theory can be seen as simplistic or static for dynamic experiences, and it may not capture all determinants of satisfaction, such as affect, loyalty, or contextual processes. To address these concerns, researchers have proposed refinements, including weighting of importance, context-specific models, and integration with alternative evaluative frameworks.

See also: Expectancy-disconfirmation theory; customer satisfaction; service quality; information systems outcomes.