Taking a Leaf out of my Review: The Asymmetrical Link between Linguistic Similarity and Attitude Certainty for Writers and Readers of Product Reviews

Firms and research have recognized the importance of investigating what makes WOM persuasive (e.g., Homburg, Ehm, and Artz 2015; Rosario et al. 2016). In particular, several studies have suggested that people who express certainty in their opinions are more persuasive (Karmarkar and Tormala 2010; Petty, Briñol and Tormala 2002; Tormala 2016). A common interpretation of these findings is that firms would benefit from reviews by consumers who are certain in their opinions. However, we question this intuition through identifying novel links between attitude certainty and linguistic components of reviews – specifically, linguistic similarity of product reviews to each other. Literature on the links between repetition, similarity, validation and certainty suggests that information repetition and consistency makes people more certain about it (e.g. Dechêne, et al. 2010; Kendal, Giraldeau, and Laland 2009; Koriat 2011, 2012; Skurnik et al. 2005), and that opinions that are held by more people are perceived as more valid (e.g. Cialdini 2009; Nakahashi, Wakano, and Henrich 2012; Petrocelli et al. 2007; Zou et al. 2009). Research on linguistic similarity shows that mimicking the other parties’ language or adjusting one’s linguistic style to another person’s increases liking and trust (Moore and McFerran 2017) and the likelihood to reach an agreement(Huffaker, Swaab, and Diermeier 2011; Ludwig et al. 2013; Su, Mariadoss and Reynolds 2015; Sagi and Diermeier 2017; Swaab, Maddux, and Sinaceur 2011).