| By the end of December 2014, the number of China’s online shopping users has reached 361 million, with 59.53 million (19.7%) increase compared with the data of 2013. While people enjoy the convenience of online shopping, more and more researchers begin paying attention to the factors which can affect the purchasing decision. Consumers will read the online reviews from others when they browse product pages and make a consumption decisions. The report of CNNIC in 2014 has pointed that other users’comments play a dominated role in the decision-making process in online shopping.It is actually a process of information processing when individual are browsing online reviews. Researchers wonder whether the individual difference is the key factor affecting the information processing because people will be differently affected when they face the same information.Need for cognition is the tendency of individual cognitive processing, based on the elaboration likelihood model, different individuals act through different paths when they process the same information, that’s why different results happens. In this paper, two studies were designed to explore the process of characteristics of the online reviews affecting the individuals with different level need for cognition. Meantime, information adoption was studied as mediating variables to explore the mechanism of characteristics of the online reviews affecting the purchasing intention, and by this way can we provide theoretical guidance and practical inspiration for application of online reviews in online shopping.In study 1, real website pages were used as experimental material to conduct the quality of online reviews (high/low) x quantity of online reviews(more/less) x need for cognition level (high/low) between-design experiment for 290 participants. The results showed that:main effects of the quality and quantity of online reviews were significant, which means both quality and quantity of online reviews can positively affect the information adoption intention and purchase intention; there was significant interaction effect between quality of review and need for cognition, so did quantity of review and need for cognition, which means the quality of review mainly influence the individuals with higher level of need for cognition, while the quantity of review mainly influence the individuals with lower level of need for cognition. Furthermore, the mediating effect of information adoption intention and the moderating effect of need were confirmed.Based on study 1, study 2 choose the objectivity of reviews as independent variable, conducting the objectivity of online reviews (subjective/objective)×need for cognition level(high/low) between-design experimental for 134 participants. The results showed that:main effect of the objectivity was not significant, which means both objectivity and information adoption intention had no direct effects on purchase intention; there was significant interaction effect between objectivity of review and need for cognition, which means the objectivity of review mainly influence the individuals with higher level of need for cognition. Furthermore, the mediation effect of information adoption intention and the moderation effect of need for cognition were confirmed.Finally, the limitations of the present study were discussed and summarized; future directions were provided, and theoretical implications as well as practical value of this paper were discussed. |
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