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Explaining the popularity bias in online consumer choice.

Brett K Hayes1, Ashton Wisken1, Nicole Cruz1

  • 1School of Psychology.

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This summary is machine-generated.

Consumers often favor products with more reviews, a "popularity bias," even if quality is lower. Explaining sample size differences unrelated to quality significantly reduces this bias.

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Area of Science:

  • Decision Making
  • Consumer Psychology
  • Social Information Processing

Background:

  • Online reviews significantly influence consumer purchasing decisions.
  • A common observation is the
  • where consumers overweight review sample size relative to product quality.
  • This bias may stem from consumers' causal attribution processes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To propose and test a novel account of the popularity bias based on causal attribution.
  • To investigate how explanations for review sample size affect consumer choice.
  • To examine the role of social information in product selection.

Main Methods:

  • Two experiments were conducted involving participants rating product preferences.
  • Participants evaluated pairs of products with varying mean quality scores and review sample sizes.
  • Explanations for sample size differences (quality-unrelated vs. none) were manipulated.

Main Results:

  • The popularity bias was replicated when no explanation for sample size was provided.
  • Products with larger review samples were chosen more often, even with slightly lower quality.
  • When sample size differences were attributed to factors other than quality (e.g., market time), the bias was significantly reduced.

Conclusions:

  • Consumer preference for products with larger review samples is influenced by perceived quality.
  • Providing quality-unrelated explanations for sample size differences can mitigate the popularity bias.
  • Understanding causal attribution is key to explaining choices based on social information.