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

Perceived favorability of the traveler reviews 
 
To facilitate data analyses, tertiary split was applied to pre-decisional disposition measure, thus creating 
three levels of pre-decisional disposition, namely “leaning toward booking the hotel”, “neither leaning toward nor 
leaning against booking the hotel”, and “leaning against booking the hotel”.
On the basis of a one-way ANOVA with the pre-decisional disposition as the independent variable and 
perceived favorability as independent variable (
F
(2, 270) =3.93, p<0.05), simple comparisons were performed by a 
two-tailed least significant difference test. As predicted, respondents with an established pre-decisional disposition 
of “leaning toward booking the hotel” rated the traveler reviews more favorable than the respondents with no 
established pre-decisional disposition (
81
.
4
=
toward
X
vs.
40
.
4
=
undecided
X
, p<0.01), showing evidence of confirmation 
bias in the evaluation of traveler reviews by respondents with an established pre-decisional disposition.
Comparison between the “leaning toward” and “leaning against” group showed that the direction of the 
difference in perceived favorability between the two groups was as predicted but the magnitude of the difference 
failed to achieve conventional statistical significance (
81
.
4
=
toward
X
vs. 
56
.
4
=
against
X
, p>0.16). Although not tested 
in this study, the insignificant difference between the two groups with established pre-decisional disposition may be 
due to a possible interplay between the confirmation bias and negativity bias during the evaluation process such that 
the confirmation bias in the “leaning toward” group is attenuated, thus diminishing the significant difference in the 
favorability perception between the two groups. Taken together, the results showed evidence that exposed to non-
diagnostic traveler reviews, consumers with established pre-decisional disposition are likely to form an evaluation of 
traveler reviews biased toward the direction of their pre-decisional disposition. Hypothesis 2a was partially 
supported.
To test for Hypothesis 2b that predicts that exposed to non-diagnostic traveler reviews, consumers with no 
established pre-decisional disposition are likely to form a negatively valenced evaluation of traveler reviews, two 
sets of comparison are needed. For the first comparison, the perceived favorability of traveler reviews by 
“undecided” group has to be significantly lower than the “leaning toward” group. For the second comparison, the 
perceived favorability of traveler reviews by “undecided” group has to show no significance difference from the 
“leaning against” group, as the latter group is believed to engage in hypothesis-testing process to “prove” the non-
diagnostic traveler reviews is overall negative. These are the exact patterns observed in our data: “Undecided” 
group showed lower favorability ratings than the “leaning toward” group (
40
.
4
=
undecided
X
vs. 
81
.
4
=
toward
X
, p<0.01).
In addition, there is no significant difference between the “undecided” group and “leaning against” group 
(
40
.
4
=
undecided
X
vs. 
56
.
4
=
against
X
, p>0.35). The results supported the prediction stated in Hypothesis 2b.