Effect of online review comment recency on information processing: interaction between overall and recently posted individual ratings

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to examine the context-specific effect of online review recency on the processing of a review by tourists. It compared how tourists process the rating of a recently posted review, which is in conflict with the average rating of a group of online reviews, for evaluating a restaurant in two different contexts: when searching for a restaurant to visit in the near future (local search) and in the far future (pre-trip search). Based on the construal level theory, this study hypothesized that a recent rating affects tourists’ perceptions of reviewed restaurants in the local search context more than it does in the pre-trip search context. Two experiments were conducted, and the results supported the hypotheses. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

摘要

本研究旨在检验在线评论最近度对游客评论处理的特定情境影响. 它比较了游客如何处理最近发布的评论的评分,这与一组在线评论的平均评分相冲突,以在两种不同的情况下评估一家餐厅:搜索近期(本地搜索)和远期(旅行前搜索)的餐厅. 基于解释水平理论,本研究假设,与旅行前搜索环境相比,最近的评级更能影响游客在当地搜索环境中对受评餐厅的感知. 进行了两个实验,结果支持了这些假设. 讨论了对理论和实践的启示.

KEYWORDS:

• Online reviews
• information recency
• local search
• construal level theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).