How Do Review Party's Identity Cues Influence Consumers' Online Review Adoption Intention?

Professionalism and popularity are two important external identity cues of the review party. Previous studies have mostly focused on the content of the reviewers' comments. However, few studies have explored the potential impact of the review party's cues on consumers' adoption willingness and consumption behavior. This study mainly examined the neural mechanisms of how the differences in the two identity cues of the review party affect consumers while adopting the comments. The current study employed an event-related potential (ERP) experiment, in which the participants were asked to make a personal choice quickly based on the review party's identity cues after seeing the target product. A 2-level professionalism (low vs. high) x 2-level popularity (low vs. high) experiment design was used to test the impact of the review party's professionalism and popularity on consumers' intentions to adopt the review. The behavioral data reveal that the two identity cues of the review party impact the adoption rate, and the review party's popularity has an impact on the reaction time. The ERP data indicate that the review party's popularity affects the perceived risk (the N2 component, which is a high-risk signal) and the two identity cues of the review party affect the evaluation and classification process [the later positive potential (LPP) component]. These results indicate that when the review party has a high degree of professionalism, its popularity has less influence on consumers' review adoption intention. On the contrary, when the level of professionalism is low, high popularity will promote consumers' review adoption intention. Compared to professionalism, popularity is a higher risk cue for consumers.