Conspicuous Reviewing: Affiliation with High-status Organizations as a Motivation for Writing Online Reviews

Abstract

The vast amount of reviews available online presents a paradox: Why do reviewers spend hours writing them? Here we demonstrate in three studies that one reason people write online reviews is to bolster their public identity by conspicuously affiliating with high-status products or organizations. First, we conducted a set of surveys and found that participants are more likely to post online reviews of restaurants that are higher status, controlling for their familiarity and liking of the restaurant. Second, we found that individual differences in status consumption motivation predicted increased desire to post reviews. Third, we conducted an experiment and found that participants were more likely to review the higher versus lower status restaurant.

Ulterior motives in peer and expert supplementary online reviews and consumers' perceived deception

“…However, online hotel reviews have ulterior motives, which tend to render the information deceptive and exaggerated (Ahmad and Sun, 2018; Baker and Kim, 2019; Filieri, 2016; Ling et al , 2016). For example, motivations to engage in online reviews are backed by monetary and non-monetary rewards, which nudge reviewers to write successive or supplementary reviews on travel and third-party online forums (Choi et al , 2016; Sun et al , 2017; Kovács and Horwitz, 2018; Duan et al , 2019). A BBC news report reveals that people write multiple online reviews to supplement their income in exchange for money and free products or services (Cannon et al , 2019).…”

“…Similarly, Gretzel and Yoo (2008) and Yoo and Gretzel (2009) posit that venting negative feelings is the least important motive to write reviews on online forums. In the hospitality and tourism industry, consumers help other tourists by posting warnings and decreasing their risk perception (Kovács and Horwitz, 2018; Magno et al , 2018; Yoo and Gretzel, 2009). Despite acknowledging this consumer behavior, sparse empirical work has examined consumers' altruistic response associated with dissatisfaction, which results from the perceived deception of ulterior motives in peer and expert supplementary reviews.…”

Reviewer social class influences responses to online evaluations of an organization

“…Our research adds to growing body of work showing that social class shapes the way people interact [ 52 ], and particularly extends the current literature on interclass interactions to include responses to online reviewers [ 49 ]. Across one observational field study and two experiments, we demonstrate that reviewers’ social class backgrounds influence the ways in which potential customers respond to online reviews about organizations.…”

“…Third, people may infer the social class of others from the kind of organizations and restaurants they review. Specifically, we think that someone who typically reviews expensive and high-class restaurants will be seen as higher class while someone who typically reviews low-class restaurants such as chain diners and hot dog restaurants, will be seen as lower-class [ 49 ]. We note that we do not measure (1) and (2).…”

A sentiment analysis of Michelin-starred restaurants

“…In terms of pricing, high-end restaurants, especially Michelin-starred restaurants, have the edge in premium pricing, yet competitive pricing may backfire considering the luxurious values perceived by their patrons. In addition, people are more motivated to write online reviews of luxury dining consumption to conspicuously affiliate themselves with high-status restaurant (Kov acs and Horwitz, 2018).…”