Effects of Emotional Valence and Arousal on Consumer Perceptions of Online Review Helpfulness

With the prevalence of online reviews, an unwieldy glut of information may be in some cases presented to the consumers. To address the problem of information overload, the voting mechanism for online review helpfulness has been used by many websites. This study focuses on the effects of emotional valence and arousal in review content on consumer perceptions of online review helpfulness, which has not received enough attentions before. Using real-world data and econometric model, we found emotions within review content significantly influence review helpfulness. Furthermore, the interaction effect of emotional valence and arousal is investigated in details. This study makes a theoretical contribution to online review helpfulness research and also provides guidance to e-commerce companies in managing online reviews.