Narrative Construction of Product Reviews Reveals the Level of Post-Decisional Cognitive Dissonance

Abstract

Social media platforms host an increasing amount of costumer reviews on a wide range of products. While most studies on product reviews focus on the sentiments expressed or helpfulness judged by readers and on their impact on subsequent buying this study aims at uncovering the psychological state of the persons making the reviews. More specifically, the study applies a narrative approach to the analysis of product reviews and addresses the question what the narrative construction of product reviews reveals about the level of post-decisional cognitive dissonance experienced by reviewers. The study involved 94 participants, who were asked to write a product review on their recently bought cell phones. The level of cognitive dissonance was measured by a self-report scale. The product reviews were analyzed by the Narrative Categorical Content Analytical Toolkit. The analysis revealed that agency, spatio-temporal perspective, and psychological perspective reflected the level of cognitive dissonance of the reviewers. The results are interpreted by elaborating on the idea that narratives have affordance to express affect.

Keywords

• post-decisional cognitive dissonance
• product review
• narrative construction
• automated linguistic analysis