Subjectivity vs. Objectivity in Online Reviews
In today’s digital landscape, social media platforms have become an integral information source as they offer many insights to consumers. News is no longer restricted to professional news sources, and once-significant platforms like television, websites, radio, and magazines play a secondary role. Even purchasing decisions are influenced by the digital world. It is now rare to base buying decisions purely on personal recommendations; rather, consumers place significant value on information gathered from online reviews, celebrity endorsements, video testimonials, etc. Of these, online reviews (both positive and negative) are the most important for any consumer purchase.
However, consumers do not perceive all online reviews as equally valuable. Reviews can be objective, subjective, or a mix of both. Objective reviews are those wherein language is used to convey facts. Thus, objective reviews simply state facts about the product such as “the instructions come in several languages.” Many consumers will find this valuable, but such information does little to convey the quality of the product experience. To understand the experience, subjective language takes priority. Subjectivity refers to language that expresses opinions or personal evaluations. This information, when in online reviews, describes the aspects of the product experience such as how a shirt fits or how a pair of pants look. Considering the differences between objectivity and subjectivity, how can these language characteristics influence consumers’ perceived value in online reviews?
Objectivity and Subjectivity in Online Reviews
Although objectivity and subjectivity are commonly understood concepts, there are slight differences in the context of advertising or marketing. Previous research lends some insight about these concepts in different settings. For example, statements released by a company are more effective if they use objective statements, as subjective statements may draw scrutiny from consumers.
Prior to our study, we predicted that having only factual statements in reviews would be perceived as helpful. We also predicted that subjective statements, on their own, would also be viewed as helpful. The next prediction, however, goes against consumer intuition. We believed that combining objectivity and subjectivity in the same review would reduce the review’s helpfulness. Intuition suggests that objectivity and subjectivity would jointly contribute to the helpfulness of the review, but we found that the resulting complexity of the review would make it more difficult to process the information.
Study Background
To check the validity of our hypotheses, we created an algorithm that could classify sentences as objective or subjective. This algorithm was applied to over two million Amazon reviews from 2008 to 2014 across 13 product categories. In addition to classifying the sentences of each review as objective or subjective, we recorded each review’s helpfulness rating. Additionally, we had a group of participants classify each of the product categories as hedonic or utilitarian, as we hoped to understand how consumer perspective towards a product category would alter how its reviews are read. Then, we analyzed these three data for each review.
Our Study
For our first hypothesis, we find that more objectivity in reviews (when keeping the amount of subjectivity constant) leads to a more helpful review. Additionally, our second hypothesis was also validated. More subjectivity (when the amount of objectivity is kept constant) also leads to a more helpful review. Our third hypothesis regarding combining objectivity and subjectivity was also true. When subjective and objective sentences are combined in a review, helpfulness increases less than the separate effects combined.
With our classification of each of the product categories as hedonic or utilitarian, essentially for pleasure or for need, we learned about the relationship between the perspective towards a product category and the objective/subjective nature of a review. We found that the decreased helpfulness found in reviews with a combination of subjectivity and objectivity is even more pronounced when it comes to product categories that are considered hedonic. This is likely because consumers prefer simple reviews that require less effort when researching a product that is purely for enjoyment.
Real Estate Implications
These conclusions lend themselves to the real estate industry in how firms advertise themselves to potential clients. With the knowledge that consumers tend to avoid complicated statements with a combination of objectivity and subjectivity, marketing departments should use one linguistic approach at a time when releasing promotional material. Likewise, when firms advertise or publicize testimonials, try to adhere to either fact-based or opinion-based comments. Doing so will likely increase the effectiveness of marketing material and attract more clients.
Firms should take advantage of our findings to garner and publicize more effective reviews to make the thought process easier on the consumer. Buyers will be able to better evaluate and select a real estate firm or agent that more closely mirrors their buying style and evaluative criteria.
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Recommended Reading
Park, Sang Kyu, Taikgun Song, and Aner Sela (2023), “The Effect of Subjectivity and Objectivity in Online Reviews: A Convolutional Neural Network Approach,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 33, 701-713.
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About the Authors
Sang Kyu Park, PhD
Assistant Professor of Marketing, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Hong Kong)
Dr. Sang Kyu Park’s (PhD – University of Florida) research focuses on consumer inference-making and how consumers make decisions in uncertain environments. He is also interested in how consumers interact with new technology (e.g., Alexa). His research has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research and the Journal of Consumer Psychologyand has been presented at numerous conferences such as ACR, SCP, and BDRM. His most recent awards include the Best Paper Award from the Korean Marketing Association in 2021, Teaching Excellence Scholarship from the University of Florida in 2020, and the AMA-Sheth Doctoral Consortium Fellow award from Indiana University in 2020.
Taikgun Song, MA, MS
Lecturer, University of Florida
Mr. Taikgun Song’s (MA – University of Florida, MS – Iowa State University) research focuses on natural language processing and machine learning and statistical learning. His research has been published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Aner Sela, PhD
Professor of Marketing, University of Florida
Dr. Aner Sela (PhD – Stanford University) is an expert on how people make choices and form preferences. His work highlights how everyday decisions are shaped by people's momentary experiences, their intuitions, and seemingly unimportant features of the decision context. He has been repeatedly ranked among the Top 50 Most Productive Marketing Authors and recognized as an MSI Young Scholar (2015) and an MSI Scholar (2020) by the Marketing Science Institute. His recent research has been published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Marketing Research, and Journal of Consumer Research.
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