TY - GEN
T1 - Authority vs. peer
T2 - 27th International Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2009
AU - Sundar, S. Shyam
AU - Xu, Qian
AU - Oeldorf-Hirsch, Anne
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - From the most e-mailed stories of the day to the most favorite stocks of the week, Web interfaces are rife with cues conveying other users' ratings and reviews of products and services. Do these peer opinions indeed affect our decisions? And if so, are they as strong in their impact as cues conveying authority/expertise (i.e., high source credibility)? We explored these questions through an experiment (N = 243) guided by the heuristic-systematic model in social psychology. Bandwagon/peer cues are generally more persuasive, but when they are inconsistent, the authority cue influences decisions. In general, task involvement promotes systematic processing of these cues. Interestingly, we found no difference in perceived authority between CNET Editor's Choice seal and a seal from a fictitious "authority" (Zig!), among other indications of heuristic processing. We discuss design implications for user interfaces in general and recommendation agents in particular.
AB - From the most e-mailed stories of the day to the most favorite stocks of the week, Web interfaces are rife with cues conveying other users' ratings and reviews of products and services. Do these peer opinions indeed affect our decisions? And if so, are they as strong in their impact as cues conveying authority/expertise (i.e., high source credibility)? We explored these questions through an experiment (N = 243) guided by the heuristic-systematic model in social psychology. Bandwagon/peer cues are generally more persuasive, but when they are inconsistent, the authority cue influences decisions. In general, task involvement promotes systematic processing of these cues. Interestingly, we found no difference in perceived authority between CNET Editor's Choice seal and a seal from a fictitious "authority" (Zig!), among other indications of heuristic processing. We discuss design implications for user interfaces in general and recommendation agents in particular.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=70349189157&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=70349189157&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/1520340.1520645
DO - 10.1145/1520340.1520645
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:70349189157
SN - 9781605582474
T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
SP - 4231
EP - 4236
BT - Proceedings of the 27th International Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2009
Y2 - 4 April 2009 through 9 April 2009
ER -