Are Minority Opinions Shared Less?

Abstract

Abstract. Product evaluation portals on the web that collect product ratings provide an excellent opportunity to observe opinion sharing in a natural setting. Evidence across different paradigms shows that minority opinions are shared less than majority opinions. This article reports a study testing whether this effect holds on product evaluation portals. We tracked the ratings of N = 76 products at 12 measurement points. We predicted that the higher (lower) the mean initial rating of a product, the more positive (negative) the newly contributed ratings will differ from this baseline – as an indication of the preferred sharing of majority compared to minority opinions. We found, however, that newly added ratings were on average less extreme than earlier ratings. These results can either be interpreted as regression to the mean or evidence for the preferred sharing of minority opinions.