消费者矛盾性对正面在线口碑信息处理的影响

How Customers' Ambivalence Affects Their Processing of Positive Online Word-of-Mouth

在线购物的非实体性使消费者态度具有突出的矛盾性。通过两个实验针对不同消费者群体和目标商品,采用2(高矛盾性,低矛盾性)×2(主观性正面口碑,客观性正面口碑)的组间实验,探索消费者在线购物时初步态度矛盾性对于消费者进行正面口碑信息的处理方式和口碑说服力的影响。研究结果显示,初步态度高矛盾性的个体(相对于初步态度低矛盾性的个体)的信息量阈值更高,投入更多努力,采取更多系统式处理方式;面对相同的正面口碑信息,却更难以降低其矛盾性;对于正面口碑信息的主客观性特征更为敏感。同时,客观性正面口碑比主观性正面口碑对于降低个体态度矛盾性的作用更大。

Online purchase brings more ambivalence to customers＇ attitude due to the fact that customers can not observe the products directly by themselves before they pay. This study conducted two lab experiments with a 2 （high ambivalence vs. low ambivalence） ×2 （subjective word-of-mouth vs. objective word-of-mouth） design to examine how the ambivalence of attitudes of online shopping customers affects their word-of-mouth processing efforts and the persuasive power of positive reviews to them. It is found that online customers with higher ambivalence in their initial attitude have higher information sufficiency threshold, and adopt more systematic processing with more effort, but are more reluctant to reduce their ambivalence facing positive reviews. It is also found that objective word-of-mouth has more power to reduce customers＇ ambivalence than subjective word-of-mouth does, and online customers with higher ambivalent attitude are more sensitive to the subjective attrib utes of reviews. The findings remind the B2C businesses to find ways to guide customers to comment in the more objective way as well as accumulating positive reviews.