Microsoft Word 2007 ichrie conference Proceedings Final-Final 06-06-07. doc

Pre-decisional Information Distortion
Of particular relevance to the study of online traveler reviews is the notion of 
pre-decisional disposition
(Russo, Meloy & Medvec, 1998)
.
Pre-decisional disposition refers to the tentative belief or preference a person 
holds for a purchase before an actual decision is made. Consumer research suggests that consumers usually engage 
in initial information search to arrive at a consideration set. Online traveler reviews only become relevant to 
consumers when they have already somewhat formed a pre-decisional disposition after the initial information 
search. As hotel products are experiential in nature and booking decisions often have to be made with certain level 
of uncertainty, consumers are likely to turn to online traveler reviews to validate the accuracy of their initial belief 
about the hotel products. However, the very presence of a pre-decisional disposition may bias consumers’ 
evaluation of subsequent new information toward the direction of pre-decisional disposition. In other words, the 
tentative belief can lead to the evaluation of subsequent information as too supportive of the preliminary belief 
(Bond, Carlson, Meloy, Russo & Tanner, 2007). Such biased evaluation of new information is generally referred to 
as 
pre-decisional information distortion
(Russo, Meloy & Medvec, 1998).
Researchers offer the perspective that pre-decisional information distortion is due to its underlying 
cognitive process. For example, Pyszczynski and Greenberg (1987)’s attribution-theoretic biased hypothesis-testing 
model posits that individuals engage in a process of active hypothesis-testing when processing subsequent 
information. People engaged in hypothesis-testing process are likely to search for confirmation information 
especially when the new information is perceived as ambiguous or non-diagnostic (Hoch & Ha, 1986; Boulding, 
Kalra & Staelin, 1997). As a result, messages featuring hypothesis-consistent information result in more systematic 
and elaborate process while messages featuring hypothesis-inconsistent information only get the asymmetrical 
quantity of processing (Jain & Maheswaran, 2000). As a result, the evaluation of new information is susceptible to 
“confirmation bias” ---false positive than false negative errors (Snyder & Swann, 1978; Klayman & Ha, 1985).
Hence, we propose: