Political Ideology as a Predictor of Online Consumer Review Characteristics

European Conference on Information Systems, (2016)

18 Pages Posted: 29 Nov 2016 Last revised: 30 Nov 2016

See all articles by Tarun Goyal

Tarun Goyal

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg-Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg

Yannick Ouardi

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg-Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg

Lorenz Graf-Vlachy

TU Dortmund University; University of Passau

Andreas Koenig

University of Passau

Date Written: 2016

Abstract

As online consumer reviews have tremendously gained in importance for consumer decision-making and firm strategies, scholars have greatly advanced our understanding of the effect of various review characteristics on review helpfulness and product sales. However, the question of what actually causes variations in these review characteristics remains largely unexplored. This study addresses this gap and establishes a novel link between online reviews and reviewer personality by arguing that certain personality characteristics of reviewers play a crucial role in shaping the way reviews are composed. Specifically, we draw on an innovative and unobtrusive measure of personality in the context of online behavior by building on theory on political ideology. Numerous scholars have shown that individuals’ political ideologies are a result of stable, underlying personality characteristics. We hypothesize that, as a consequence, reviews by liberals exhibit more cognitively complex language, a greater diversity of arguments, more positively valenced language, a greater number of words, and a greater number of arguments compared to reviews by conservatives. By linking clickstream data to 245 online reviews, we provide support for our hypotheses. We discuss how the concept of political ideology can yield novel insights in online review research and how it allows website managers to provide more tailored incentives to potential reviewers.

Keywords: Online consumer reviews, Political ideology, Review characteristics, Reviewer personality

Suggested Citation

Goyal, Tarun and Ouardi, Yannick and Graf-Vlachy, Lorenz and Koenig, Andreas, Political Ideology as a Predictor of Online Consumer Review Characteristics (2016). European Conference on Information Systems, (2016), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2876128

Tarun Goyal

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg-Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg ( email )

Schloßplatz 4
Erlangen, DE Bavaria 91054
Germany

Yannick Ouardi

University of Erlangen-Nuremberg-Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg ( email )

Schloßplatz 4
Erlangen, DE Bavaria 91054
Germany

Lorenz Graf-Vlachy (Contact Author)

TU Dortmund University ( email )

Otto-Hahn-Str. 12
Dortmund, 44227
Germany

University of Passau ( email )

Innstrasse 27
Passau, 94032
Germany

Andreas Koenig

University of Passau ( email )

Innstrasse 27
Passau, 94032
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.wiwi.uni-passau.de/en/technology-innovation/the-chair/chairholder/

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