Abstract
While internal factors like review and reviewer characteristics have been extensively studied, the influence of external, particularly social factors, on online review processing remains relatively unexplored. This research bridges this gap by investigating how social pressures: social conformity, social validation, affects how individuals analyze online reviews. By combining the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and the Social Influence Theory (SIT), we propose a comprehensive framework to examine two key dimensions: Online review processing and the influence of social factors on this process. We conduct a study among skincare product consumers, revealing that social conformity, significantly influence reliance on peripheral cues (ratings, source credibility), however social validation does not exhibit a significant effect. Furthermore, by introducing expertise as a moderator, we observe that the direct impact of social factors becomes attenuated. This suggests that individuals with strong subject knowledge are less susceptible to the persuasive power of social cues when evaluating online review.
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