IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v65y2012i7p985-992.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Emotional expressions in online user reviews: How they influence consumers' product evaluations

Author

Listed:
  • Kim, Junyong
  • Gupta, Pranjal

Abstract

This article investigates an understudied aspect of online word-of-mouth (eWOM) — the effects of emotional expressions in eWOM. Two experiments investigate how consumers interpret emotional expressions in online user reviews and the subsequent impact on their product evaluations. The findings reveal that negative emotional expressions in a single negative review tend to decrease the reviews' informative value and make consumers' product evaluations less negative because consumers attribute the negative emotions to the reviewer's irrational dispositions. However, positive emotional expressions in a single positive review do not influence consumers' product evaluations significantly even though consumers attribute the positive emotions to the product. Next, when multiple convergent emotional expressions are present in multiple user reviews, both positive and negative emotional expressions increase informative value of the reviews and polarize consumers' product evaluations in the respective direction.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim, Junyong & Gupta, Pranjal, 2012. "Emotional expressions in online user reviews: How they influence consumers' product evaluations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 65(7), pages 985-992.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:65:y:2012:i:7:p:985-992
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.04.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296311001305
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.04.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Laros, Fleur J.M. & Steenkamp, Jan-Benedict E.M., 2005. "Emotions in consumer behavior: a hierarchical approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(10), pages 1437-1445, October.
    2. Gruen, Thomas W. & Osmonbekov, Talai & Czaplewski, Andrew J., 2006. "eWOM: The impact of customer-to-customer online know-how exchange on customer value and loyalty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 449-456, April.
    3. Zhang, Jason Q. & Craciun, Georgiana & Shin, Dongwoo, 2010. "When does electronic word-of-mouth matter? A study of consumer product reviews," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(12), pages 1336-1341, December.
    4. Adaval, Rashmi, 2001. "Sometimes It Just Feels Right: The Differential Weighting of Affect-Consistent and Affect-Inconsistent Product Information," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 28(1), pages 1-17, June.
    5. Park, Cheol & Lee, Thae Min, 2009. "Information direction, website reputation and eWOM effect: A moderating role of product type," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 61-67, January.
    6. Erevelles, Sunil, 1998. "The Role of Affect in Marketing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 199-215, July.
    7. Folkes, Valerie S, 1988. "Recent Attribution Research in Consumer Behavior: A Review and New Directions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 14(4), pages 548-565, March.
    8. Howard, Daniel J & Gengler, Charles, 2001. "Emotional Contagion Effects on Product Attitudes," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 28(2), pages 189-201, September.
    9. Herr, Paul M & Kardes, Frank R & Kim, John, 1991. "Effects of Word-of-Mouth and Product-Attribute Information on Persuasion: An Accessibility-Diagnosticity Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 17(4), pages 454-462, March.
    10. Richins, Marsha L, 1997. "Measuring Emotions in the Consumption Experience," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 24(2), pages 127-146, September.
    11. Alba, Joseph W & Hutchinson, J Wesley, 1987. "Dimensions of Consumer Expertise," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 13(4), pages 411-454, March.
    12. Fong, John & Burton, Suzan, 2008. "A cross-cultural comparison of electronic word-of-mouth and country-of-origin effects," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 233-242, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heyes, Anthony & Kapur, Sandeep, 2012. "Angry customers, e-word-of-mouth and incentives for quality provision," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 813-828.
    2. Agnieszka Zablocki & Bodo Schlegelmilch & Michael J. Houston, 2019. "How valence, volume and variance of online reviews influence brand attitudes," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 9(1), pages 61-77, June.
    3. King, Robert Allen & Racherla, Pradeep & Bush, Victoria D., 2014. "What We Know and Don't Know About Online Word-of-Mouth: A Review and Synthesis of the Literature," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 167-183.
    4. Anthony Heyes & Sandeep Kapur, 2012. "Customer Anger and Incentives for Quality Provision," Birkbeck Working Papers in Economics and Finance 1215, Birkbeck, Department of Economics, Mathematics & Statistics.
    5. Ana B. Casado-Díaz & Leonor M. Pérez-Naranjo & Ricardo Sellers-Rubio, 2017. "Aggregate consumer ratings and booking intention: the role of brand image," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 11(3), pages 543-562, September.
    6. repec:aly:journl:202070 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Ayat Mazin Almahmoud, 2019. "The Impact of Social Media Characteristics and Customer Attitude on EWOM: An Empirical Study in Jordanian Banking Sector," Journal of Social Sciences (COES&RJ-JSS), , vol. 8(2), pages 169-188, April.
    8. Tan, Huimin & Lv, Xingyang & Liu, Xiaoyan & Gursoy, Dogan, 2018. "Evaluation nudge: Effect of evaluation mode of online customer reviews on consumers’ preferences," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 29-40.
    9. Heng Tang & Xiaowan Lin, 2019. "Curbing shopping cart abandonment in C2C markets — an uncertainty reduction approach," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 29(3), pages 533-552, September.
    10. Chen, Jie & Teng, Lefa & Yu, Ying & Yu, Xueer, 2016. "The effect of online information sources on purchase intentions between consumers with high and low susceptibility to informational influence," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 467-475.
    11. Lova Rajaobelina & Isabelle Brun & Nour Kilani & Line Ricard, 2022. "Examining emotions linked to live chat services: The role of e-service quality and impact on word of mouth," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(3), pages 232-249, September.
    12. Cheng, Yi-Hsiu & Ho, Hui-Yi, 2015. "Social influence's impact on reader perceptions of online reviews," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(4), pages 883-887.
    13. Malhotra, Naresh K., 2005. "Attitude and affect: new frontiers of research in the 21st century," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 477-482, April.
    14. Purnawirawan, Nathalia & Eisend, Martin & De Pelsmacker, Patrick & Dens, Nathalie, 2015. "A Meta-analytic Investigation of the Role of Valence in Online Reviews," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 17-27.
    15. Kim, Jikyung (Jeanne) & Dong, Hang & Choi, Jeonghye & Chang, Sue Ryung, 2022. "Sentiment change and negative herding: Evidence from microblogging and news," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 364-376.
    16. Nick Hajli, 2018. "Ethical Environment in the Online Communities by Information Credibility: A Social Media Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(4), pages 799-810, June.
    17. Hernández-Ortega, Blanca, 2020. "When the performance comes into play: The influence of positive online consumer reviews on individuals' post-consumption responses," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 422-435.
    18. Bambauer-Sachse, Silke & Mangold, Sabrina, 2011. "Brand equity dilution through negative online word-of-mouth communication," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 38-45.
    19. Payal S. Kapoor & K.R. Jayasimha & Ashish Sadh, 2013. "Brand-related, Consumer to Consumer, Communication via Social Media," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 2(1), pages 43-59, January.
    20. Colmekcioglu, Nazan & Marvi, Reza & Foroudi, Pantea & Okumus, Fevzi, 2022. "Generation, susceptibility, and response regarding negativity: An in-depth analysis on negative online reviews," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 235-250.
    21. Kick, Markus, 2015. "Social Media Research: A Narrative Review," EconStor Preprints 182506, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:65:y:2012:i:7:p:985-992. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.