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Abstract

The current research demonstrates that posting online reviews can influence the evaluations of the individual posting the review. Across four studies, we examine the impact of individuals’ naive theories about the meaning of their own posting on subsequent attitudes. In these experiments, individuals were assigned to write either positive or negative reviews about various products and services and then post them. The meaning associated with posting a review was varied to indicate either high validity (e.g., saving, extending, sharing) or low validity (e.g., deleting, hiding, archiving) with respect to their previously written reviews. When posting was associated with a high validity meaning, it increased reliance on those thoughts polarizing attitudes and behavioral intentions compared with when the posting was associated with a low validity meaning. These findings were mediated by the impact of meaning on thought confidence.

Keywords

attitudes persuasion metacognitive confidence validity word of mouth

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How Posting Online Reviews Can Influence the Poster’s Evaluations

Abstract

Keywords

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