Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
4-2019
Abstract
If people avoid alternatives they dislike, a negative evaluative bias emerges because errorsof under-evaluation are unlikely to be corrected. Prior work that analyzed this mechanismhas shown that when the social environment exposes people to avoided alternatives (i.e. itmakes them resample them), then evaluations can become systematically more positive. In this paper, we clarify the conditions under which this happens. By analyzing a simple learning model, we show that whether additional exposures induced by the social environment lead to more positive or more negative evaluations depends on how prior evaluations and the social environment interact in driving resampling. We apply these insights to the study of the effect of popularity on evaluations. We show theoretically that increased popularity leads to more positive evaluations when popularity mainly increases the chances of resampling for individuals with low current evaluations. Data on repeat stays at hotels are consistent with this condition: the popularity of a hotel mainly impacts the chances of a repeat stay for individuals with low satisfaction scores. Our results illustrate how a sampling approach can help to explain when and why people tend to like popular alternatives. They also shed new light on the polarization of attitudes across social groups.
Keywords
Information Sampling, Learning, Beliefs, Attitudes, Judgments, Biases, Social Influence
Discipline
Cognitive Psychology | Marketing
Research Areas
Marketing
Publication
Topics in Cognitive Science
Volume
11
Issue
2
First Page
358
Last Page
373
ISSN
1756-8757
Identifier
10.1111/tops.12387
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
LE MENS, Gaël; DENRELL, Jerker; KOVACS, Balázs; and KARAMAN, Hülya.
Information sampling, judgment and the environment: Application to the effect of popularity on evaluations. (2019). Topics in Cognitive Science. 11, (2), 358-373.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/5995
Copyright Owner and License
Publisher
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Supplementary proofs
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12387