Is Negative Feedback Better than No Feedback? The Impact of Social Dynamics on Reviewers’ Review Decisions

Abstract

Consumers are increasingly relying on online product reviews when making purchase decisions. While the impact of online reviews on product sales has been studied extensively, only a few studies examine online reviewer’s decision making. This paper directly measures social influences on reviewers’ review decisions as well as on consumers’ voting decisions (i.e. consumers vote for the helpfulness of reviews). Contrary to traditional cognitive evaluation theory, we find that both positive and negative feedback may positively motivate reviewers review behaviors. Receiving negative feedback may pose a challenge to reviewers and indicate the amount of attention the review receives, which could increase intrinsic motivation for reviewers to write new reviews. In addition, our results of the consumer voting decision model show that there is a multi-audience effect among consumers, as voters, who try to balance the sentiment of existing votes.