How Regulatory Orientation and Feelings of Gratitude Shape Online Review Helpfulness

Abstract

Online review helpfulness ratings are an important indicator of the impact of online reviews. Often times, helpfulness is explained in terms of observable qualities of online reviews that predict helpfulness ratings. This research proposes that focusing on the psychological processes that underlie helpfulness voting informs a better understanding of what shapes review helpfulness ratings. Specifically, because goal orientation influences information processing, consumers’ regulatory orientation interacts with review valence to determine review helpfulness. When review valence and regulatory orientation match, consumers are more likely to express helpfulness through voting. The findings show that this effect occurs at least in part because matching review valence and regulatory orientation instills feelings of gratitude towards the reviewer. As a consequence, consumers are more likely to reward the reviewer with a helpfulness vote to express their feeling of gratitude through actions. However, when reviewers actively state expectations of reciprocal behavior by readers, gratitude is reduced and so is the likelihood that a review receives a helpfulness vote. Evidence from five studies using review data and online experiments show support for these effects.

What makes a helpful online review? Empirical evidence on the effects of review and reviewer characteristics

“…Han et al (2016) pointed out that the shorter the time gap between the reviews and the release of products, the more helpful the reviews are. While this view is also supported by other researchers (Kwok et al , 2016; Mafael, 2019; Park and Nicolau, 2015), Yin et al (2012) and Lee et al (2014) found that reviews published later would reap more helpfulness. This may be affected by the website's chronological-review-display mechanism, in which the latest reviews are placed first and are most likely to be seen by users (Racherla and Friske, 2012).…”

“…Some researchers adopted empirical methods to study the factors that affect the helpfulness of reviews, including electronic retail websites (Mafael, 2019; Wang et al , 2019; Yin et al , 2016), movie review platforms (Ullah et al , 2015) and tourism service sites (Liu and Park, 2015; Park and Nicolau, 2015). Based on the reviews on IMDb, Zhiming et al (2014) found that the review extremity and timeliness have an important role on its helpfulness.…”

“…Review valence, represented by the star rating given by the reviewer (Mafael, 2019), refers to the positiveness or negativity of the review content. Baumeister et al (2001) termed the relationship between review rating and review helpfulness as positive–negative asymmetry.…”

Together We Rise: How Social Movements Succeed

“…Positive emotions such as those involved in prosocial behaviors also spark action by enhancing feelings of affiliation (Rudd et al, 2019) and encouraging people to volunteer time or make donations (Aaker & Akutsu, 2009; Aaker et al, 2011; Dunn, Gilbert, & Wilson, 2011). Such acts of generosity can inspire individuals to “pass it on,” acting generously toward another person because the positive feelings of warmth and admiration inspire benevolence (Van de Vyver & Abrams, 20152015; see also Mafael, 2019). People also seek meaning by helping others and doing purposeful work to make a difference in their community (Schlosser & Levy, 2016).…”

Observational learning: Influence of regulatory focus, knowledge, and summarized observable recommendations on consumer decision outcomes in an online environment

“…To bridge this gap, we investigate how SORs from multiple sources influence consumers' decision-making. Hence, we consider the contributions from recent investigations on textual content of individual reviews, such as Mafael (2019) and Grewal and Stephen (2019), to be distinct from our research.…”