Do Others' Opinion Matter? Investigating the Impact of Gender Differences on Trustworthiness of e-WOM

The maturing of Web 2.0 infrastructure fosters the rapid generation and dissemination of electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM). The abundance of e-WOM allows online service providers to facilitate consumers' trust building. However, due to the often coexistence of two forms of e-WOM, namely numerical rating and opinionated review, consumers can perceive cognitive dissonance between the former and the latter. This cognitive dissonance can hinder the formation of consumers' trust and compel them to resolve the conflict. Guided by confirmation bias theory, we propose that, to maintain trusting beliefs when experiencing dissonance in e-WOM, male consumers value opinionated review over numerical rating and vice versa for their female counterparts. The results of our field survey on a custom developed website with 115 college students empirically validated our hypothesized relationships and also unveiled male's general bias towards opinionated review. Our findings can contribute to both research and practice.

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