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Few Ways to Love, but Many Ways to Hate: Attribute Ambiguity and the Positivity Effect in Agent Evaluation

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  • Andrew D. Gershoff
  • Ashesh Mukherjee
  • Anirban Mukhopadhyay

Abstract

Recent research has identified a positivity effect in consumers' evaluations of agents, such as friends and professional critics, who provide word-of-mouth evaluations and recommendations. Specifically, agreement with an agent on previously loved alternatives is perceived as more diagnostic of the agent's suitability than agreement on previously hated alternatives. This article argues that the positivity effect arises from greater ambiguity about attribute ratings of hated versus loved alternatives. Three studies support this by showing that the effect is moderated by the number of attributes, the number of alternatives, and the revelation of an agent's attribute ratings, and is mediated by attribute ambiguity. (c) 2007 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew D. Gershoff & Ashesh Mukherjee & Anirban Mukhopadhyay, 2007. "Few Ways to Love, but Many Ways to Hate: Attribute Ambiguity and the Positivity Effect in Agent Evaluation," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 33(4), pages 499-505, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:33:y:2007:i:4:p:499-505
    DOI: 10.1086/510223
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    Cited by:

    1. Diptiman Banerji & Ramendra Singh & Prashant Mishra, 2020. "Friendships in marketing: a taxonomy and future research directions," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 10(3), pages 223-243, December.
    2. Coker, Brent L.S., 2012. "Seeking the opinions of others online: Evidence of evaluation overshoot," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1033-1042.
    3. Khare, Adwait & Labrecque, Lauren I. & Asare, Anthony K., 2011. "The Assimilative and Contrastive Effects of Word-of-Mouth Volume: An Experimental Examination of Online Consumer Ratings," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 111-126.
    4. Belvedere, Valeria & Goodwin, Paul, 2017. "The influence of product involvement and emotion on short-term product demand forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 652-661.
    5. Tobias Maiberger & David Schindler & Nicole Koschate-Fischer, 2024. "Let’s face it: When and how facial emojis increase the persuasiveness of electronic word of mouth," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 119-139, January.
    6. Andrea C. Wojnicki & David Godes, 2017. "Signaling Success: Word of Mouth as Self-Enhancement," Customer Needs and Solutions, Springer;Institute for Sustainable Innovation and Growth (iSIG), vol. 4(4), pages 68-82, December.
    7. Riccardo Reith & Maximilian Fischer & Bettina Lis, 2020. "Explaining the intention to use social trading platforms: an empirical investigation," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 90(3), pages 427-460, April.

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