The impact of online consumer reviews on attitude and purchase intention of consumers: the moderating roles of presentation order and consumer skepticism toward online reviews

• Grant number: 21/11355-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2022
• End date: August 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Administration
• Principal Investigator: José Mauro da Costa Hernandez
• Grantee: José Mauro da Costa Hernandez
• Host Institution: Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades (EACH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Cristiane Benedetti Chammas ; Eduardo Eugênio Spers ; Murilo Carrazedo Marques da Costa Filho

Abstract

The objective of this research is to expand knowledge about the influence of online consumer reviews (OCR) posted on the Internet on consumer purchasing decisions. Specifically, we examine the differential effects of positive vs. negative reviews on the attitudes of consumers towards the reviewed product. In addition, we investigate potential variables associated with the configuration of these reviews and individual consumer characteristics as moderators of this effect. Despite the growing number of scientific publications on this topic in the last decade, there are still many research gaps. Perhaps the main one is the relative influence of positive vs. negative online reviews on attitudes and decision-making. Decades of research in psychology reveal that humans give more weight to negative than positive information (i.e., a negativity bias). However, marketing research on online reviews is equivocal about the negativity bias. In the proposed project, we aim to demonstrate that a negativity bias is prevalent in the online shopping environment, and we argue that the ambiguity of the literature stems from methodological paradigms used in past studies, individual characteristics of consumers, or configurations in which online reviews are available to consumers. We will use controlled experimental designs to test our hypotheses. We also introduced an innovative concept for measuring negativity bias based on the concept of marginal utility of each new positive vs. negative comment read, and we believe that this can correct the problems of past studies that used unique comments as a stimulus. (AU)