The effect of availability heuristics in online consumer reviews

Abstract

This research investigates principles of judgmental heuristics and dual processing systems in the online purchasing environment. It examines the effects of availability cues in restaurant reviews on dining intentions and menu item choice. Two experiments are reported in which consumers make dining out and food choice decisions using simulated online review sites. The first experiment evaluates primacy–recency effects of positive and negative reviews along with different review types. The findings indicate that text plus ratings produce higher visit intentions and expectations compared with either cue by itself. The second experiment examines the effects of rating format, visual cues, and review valence on menu item choice. Pictures increase likelihood to choose a positively reviewed menu item but do not influence likelihood to choose a negatively reviewed item. This finding supports the negativity bias, whereby consumers place more weight on negative versus positive information. Consumers are more likely to choose a menu item with pictures when ratings are in numerical versus star rating format. The findings can be interpreted in terms of System 1 (heuristic) and System 2 (systematic) processing.

The impact of online platform transparency of information on consumers’ choices

“…The theory suggests that purchase decision-making in online environments that involve minimal risks, such as restaurant or hotel choices, is governed by System 1, making it more susceptible to systematic biases. Consumers rely on heuristics, especially in online shopping (Nazlan et al, 2018), where mental shortcuts simplify the decision-making processes.…”

Effects of awe on consumer preferences for healthy versus unhealthy food products

“…The sample size of all the three studies was determined in advance of data collection (Shen et al, ). The sample sizes need to be sufficient to detect a medium‐sized effect with power of .80 at the .05 significance level (Cohen, ; Nazlan, Tanford, & Montgomery, ). We recruited participants based on these calibrations in each study.…”

Satisfaction vs experienced utility: current issues and opportunities

“…Respondents tend to provide socially desirable responses that are not always reflecting their real feelings (Fischer & Fick, 1993;Holtgraves, 2017). People's answers are biased by availability heuristic as they make judgments based on things that come to their mind first (Nazlan, Tanford, & Montgomery, 2018). Survey responses could also be dependent on previous knowledge (Ross, 1989) and the mood while answering questions (Eich & Metcalfe, 1989).…”

“…Tourism activities are highly experiential taking place over an extended time period (Mannell & Iso-Ahola, 1987;Chang, 2018), which demands measurement both in real time and retrospectively for capturing the true nature of consumption. However, self-reported retrospective measures have the limitations because they 1) are biased by social desirability, availability heuristics, and mood while answering questions (Holtgraves, 2017;Nazlan, Tanford, & Montgomery, 2018);2) typically do not capture changes in affective dimensions of customer experience (Prayag, Hosany, Muskat, & Del Chiappa, 2017); and 3) do not reflect the whole spectrum of customer evaluations (Bianchi, 2016). Conversely, the experienced utility may be superior in 1) capturing the affective components of visitor experience, 2) eliminating the majority of self-report biases, 3) investigating the relationships between temporal components of visitor experience with different antecedents and outcomes, and 4) applying emerging multidisciplinary moment-based research techniques.…”