Credibility of negative online product reviews: Reviewer gender, reputation and emotion effects

Abstract

The electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) literature supports the robust finding that negative reviews are generally more influential to consumer behavior than positive ones. Moreover, recent studies suggest that much of the negativity bias is driven by the distinct emotions embedded in the content of negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) and the interaction effects between emotions and other source factors. Although the gender of the information source is a common heuristic used in message evaluation, this is the first study to examine the effect of gender stereotypes on emotional NWOM. Two web-based experiments show that when reviewer reputation cues are present, emotional content in NWOM lowers the credibility of male reviewers and the helpfulness of their reviews, but does not affect female-authored reviews. In contrast, when reputation cues are absent, the presence of emotions in NWOM lowers the credibility of female reviewers, but not that of male reviewers. The reputation cue has a positive effect on NWOM credibility and helpfulness. Findings help companies understand the impact of gender stereotypes in online NWOM and detect the most helpful NWOM in order to correct product issues and improve future eWOM.