Research On Impact Of Negative Online Word Of Mouth To Consumer Product Attitude

In recent years, online word of mouth(online WOM) becomes an important source ofinformation about a product. This online WOM has influenced the consumer’s attitude.Some research had found that negative online WOM has more effect than positive one.However few of the research focused on the mechanism between negative online WOMand consumer product attitude.This study investigates the effects of negative online consumer reviews on consumerproduct attitude. In particular, it examines the proportion and type of negative onlineconsumer reviews. In this study, we use the elaboration likelihood model(ELM) to explainthe persuasive effect of the proportion and type depending on product involvement. Afterstudy the literature in this field, we propose the hypothesis of this study. This study useExperimental methods to test the mechanism of negative online WOM in the process ofinfluence the product attitude of consumer. The experiment in this study uses233collegestudents in Wuhan. The proposed hypotheses are tested by two-way analysis ofcovariance.Through2x2x2experiment, we find that attribute-value online WOM has more effecton consumer product attitude than simple-recommendation negative online WOM, and ahigh proportion of negative online consumer reviews elicits a conformity effect. As theproportion of negative online consumer reviews increases, the difference of the effects ofattribute-value and simple-recommendation negative online WOM bigger in high-productinvolvement consumers than low-product involvement consumers.