How to Combat Feelings of Emptiness in Solo Dining?

Solo dining is a growing trend in hospitality, yet little is known about how to improve solo consumers’ experiences. This research identifies feelings of emptiness as a key emotional response that helps explain why solo diners’ experiences tend to be less favorable than those of group diners. Drawing on emotion regulation theory and embodied cognition, we propose that pleasure appeals counteract anticipated emptiness through hedonic framing, while fast-tempo music conveys auditory “fullness” via cross-modal metaphors. Three between-subject experiments with British solo diners by default test and support our hypotheses. Study 1 shows that solo (vs. group) dining lowers satisfaction due to increased feelings of emptiness. Study 2 finds that pleasure-based advertising appeals (vs. challenge-based) increase solo consumers’ purchase intention before consumption. Study 3 reveals that fast-tempo (vs. slow-tempo) ambient music enhances solo diners’ satisfaction by mitigating feelings of emptiness during consumption.