Are we trapped by majority influences in electronic word-of-mouth?

Abstract

Being an effective online mechanism to generate large-scale electronic Word-of-Mouth (EWOM), online feedback systems (OFS) offers a variety of system design cues to facilitate consumers' decision making. However, such cues may lead consumers to make inferences based on an overall picture of the majority opinion without scrutinizing the content of reviews. This study draws on theories of majority/minority influence and dual-process to explore the influences of OFS design cues on consumers' learning outcomes (i.e., awareness of product/service, confidence in judgment, intention to searching for additional information and intention to conform to majority). Numerical and power majority influences are examined through two design cues: review clustering format (list-clustering vs. pair-clustering) and source credibility (available vs. unavailable). © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.