What is Interpersonal Communication Worth? Interpersonal Calibration of Knowledge and Selection of Recommendation Sources

Abstract

To choose a product, consumers often ask the advice of people around them, i.e., friends, opinion leaders, expert consumers or of individuals combining these characteristics. Our results show that the advice of friends and opinion leaders is most sought after and that their knowledge, moreover, is overestimated. Experts are called upon less, and their knowledge is underestimated. These errors of interpersonal judgment decrease if the source correctly assesses his own knowledge and they increase in the opposite case.