What Builds Credibility for Online Reviews
Confidence may not be convincing when recommending products or services.
Sometimes people can gain influence by expressing uncertainty, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.
“These days, you can easily find recommendations from experts or even other consumers about any product or service you might be interested in,” write authors Uma R. Karmarkar and Zakary L. Tormala (Stanford University). “But what are the factors that can make these people’s recommendations more or less influential?”
Across three experiments, the researchers presented participants with a restaurant review from either a novice or an expert, and looked at how that source’s expressed certainty or uncertainty about his or her review influenced the effects of the message. “We predicted that mismatches between the source’s level of expertise and the level of expressed certainty, or confidence, would lead people to be more persuaded by a good and compelling review,” the authors explain. “In other words, a novice would be more persuasive when he expressed certainty about his opinions, whereas an expert would be more persuasive when he expressed uncertainty.” (more…)
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