Effects of Personality on the Perceived Helpfulness of Online Reviews

Abstract

With the rapid growth of online shopping, the ability of consumers to publish their reviews has created electronic communities that provide a primary source of information and a rich text for analysis. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the relationship between customers’ personality traits and the perceived helpfulness of online reviews. In the first essay, I explore the effect of product type, search versus experience products, on the relationship between personality and review helpfulness. In the second essay, I examine the effects of personality similarity between writers and readers of online reviews on its perceived helpfulness.