An Integrative Perspective of Online Foraging Behavior with Search Engines Carlos Flavi ´ an, Raquel Gurrea, and Carlos Or ´ us University of Zaragoza ABSTRACT While technology evolves rapidly, humans have to adapt to the environment. Evolutionary theories are proposed as an overarching framework to explain the information systems phenomena. However, there is a need to develop these theories in more realistic contexts, and to integrate them with nonevolutionary theories, in order to gain a better understanding of human–computer interactions. Searching entails uncertainty, and the feelings that it arouses may affect search behavior. This research aims to fill this gap by examining the impact of situational factors on online foraging with search engines, taking into account users’ behavior and their emotional responses during the process. The results stress the importance of the initial emotional state and the temporal dimension in shaping the online environment that determines the online search behavior. C  2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Searching for information on the Internet is one of the most performed activities by online users (Jupiter Me- dia Matrix, 2006; Pew Internet Research, 2009). The rise of the Internet and information technologies (ITs) have shaped a new environment where users have ac- cess to tons of information at a relatively low cost (Klein & Ford, 2003; Peterson & Merino, 2003). Consumers have enhanced opportunities to acquire, process, and use great amounts of information in order to make more efficient decisions. However, the human mind is limited to processing and analyzing every piece of information that would be optimal to solve any informational need (H¨ aubl & Trifts, 2000). In this way, information re- trieval systems such as search engines have spread out as powerful tools that assist consumers in their inter- action with the online environment (Liaw & Huang, 2006). These tools help users to acquire better infor- mation in a more efficient way (Jansen, Both, & Spink, 2008). In fact, according to a Pew Internet report (2009), the 88% of Internet users use a search engine to get spe- cific information; Google is the most visited Web site in the world (Alexa, 2011). However, little is known about the reasons behind the success of search engines and the relatively rapidity with which users are com- monly using them. Evolutionary psychology stresses the potential of theories grounded in an evolutionary basis for un- derstanding the complexity of human–IT interactions (Kock, 2009). Human behavior evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago, and the ways ITs are used to- day could not be so different from those that were used to survive in the caves. Specifically, foraging theories have been extended to the study of users’ search be- havior in online environments (Pirolli & Card, 1999; Rajala & Hantula, 2000). According to this perspective, online users forage on the Web trying to maximize the information value, while minimizing the amount of re- sources (e.g. energy, time) exerted to obtain it. In this way, the capacity of a piece of information to offer a good answer to a search query, or information scent (Pirolli & Card, 1999), is very likely to guide the search process (Nielsen, 2003; Sundar, Knobloch-Westerwick, & Hastall, 2007). However, there is a need for research that examines online foraging behavior in more realistic contexts (Ra- jala & Hantula, 2000), where factors that define the situation may exert a great influence on online search behavior (Foxall, 1992, 1997; Kock, 2009). Moreover, while several authors have acknowledged the potential of evolutionary theories to help explain the information systems phenomena, they also point to an integration of evolutionary and nonevolutionary theories in order to offer a more complete understanding of such behav- iors (Kock, 2010; Kock et al., 2008). In this way, the uncertainty that any search entails creates feelings of confusion and anxiety that affect information search be- havior, by means of changes on physical actions, cogni- tive processes, and affective outcomes of the search (e.g. Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 29(11): 836–849 (November 2012) View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mar C  2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/mar.20568 836