91福利

Do people adjust for extreme review score bias?

An important implication of the internet on modern economic life is the increasing reliance on online reviews to inform consumption decisions. Yet, extremely positive or negative reviews may be subject to a large degree of bias, as well as conflicts of interest. I introduce a model that proposes individuals weight extreme review scores to adjust for this potential bias. A randomised experiment on 501 individuals finds insufficient evidence that extreme review scores are being weighted when evaluating the quality of a good. Hence, individuals are susceptible to being influenced by deliberately falsified extreme reviews.