The Effect of Reviewers' Self-Disclosure of Personal Review Record on Consumer Purchase Decisions: An ERPs Investigation.

Jianhua Liu,Zan Mo,Kewen Luo,Lijuan Song,Wei Wei,Huijian Fu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.609538

Abstract

Personal review record, as a form of personally identifiable information, refers to the past review information of a reviewer. The disclosure of reviewers’ personal information on electronic commerce websites has been found to substantially impact consumers’ perception regarding the credibility of online reviews. However, personal review record has received little attention in prior research. The current study investigated whether the disclosure of personal review record influenced consumers’ information processing and decision making by adopting event-related potentials (ERPs) measures, as ERPs allow for a nuanced examination of the neural mechanisms that underlie cognitive processes. At the behavioral level, we found that the purchase rate was higher and that the reaction time was shorter when the review record was disclosed (vs. when it was not), indicating that the disclosed condition was more favorable to the participants. Moreover, ERPs data showed that the disclosed condition induced an attenuated N400 component and an increased LPP component relative to the undisclosed condition, suggesting that the former condition gave rise to less cognitive and emotional conflict and to more positive evaluations. Thus, by elucidating potential cognitive and neural underpinnings, this study demonstrates the positive impact of reviewers’ disclosure of personal review record on consumers’ purchase decisions.

Highlights

In the current era of electronic commerce, online consumer reviews (OCRs) serve as principle cues for consumer decision making and attract much scholarly attention (Reyes-Menendez et al, 2019b)
In line with previous studies on consumer decision making, we mainly focused on N400 and late positive potential (LPP) components (Wang et al, 2015; Goto et al, 2017; Jin et al, 2017)
By combining behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) approaches, this study provides a nuanced understanding of how self-disclosure of personal review record influences consumer information processing and decision-making

Summary

Introduction

In the current era of electronic commerce, online consumer reviews (OCRs) serve as principle cues for consumer decision making and attract much scholarly attention (Reyes-Menendez et al, 2019b). To lower the risks of purchasing products on electronic platforms, consumers generally resort to OCRs with a high level of credibility when making purchase decisions (Riley et al, 1954; Mcknight and Kacmar, 2006; Park et al, 2014). Given that OCRs are posted online by strangers in most cases and that large volumes of OCRs are available, it is challenging for consumers to assess the credibility of OCRs (Metzger, 2007; Cheung and Thadani, 2012; Park et al, 2013; Reyes-Menendez et al, 2019a). Consumers have to exploit online informational cues in order to make credibility evaluations.

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion