Thin Slice Judgment in Predicting Web Visitors' Behavior

Stickiness of websites has been promoted as the predictor of web surfers’ ultimate purchase of products or services. Longer website exposure leads to a higher probability that a purchase or use behavior will emerge. Furthermore, trustworthiness and emotional beliefs play an important role in online behavior. The question is how long does it take web surfers to form trustworthiness and emotional beliefs about a website that will influence future behavior? Using the concept of thin slice judgment, we posit that short glimpses of websites are accurate predictors of a web surfers’ trustworthiness, emotional and stickiness beliefs. Psychology research has shown that people are fairly accurate in their predictive validity in judgments and decision making using “thin slices.” We argue that thin slices could be a good predictor for a web visitor’s trust and affective state, as well as the stickiness of a website. The use of thin slice judgments could assist website developers in developing websites that recognize the importance of thin slice judgments.