The Mere Audience-Size Effect: How Incidental Audience Non-Normatively Influences the Perceived Product Quality

Abstract

Previous research suggests that people may infer a product's quality from its audience size (i.e., the number of people who consume the product). However, this research cautions against the overuse of such inferences by identifying the mere audience-size effect: When audience size results from incidental factors (e.g., weather) and thus cannot accurately reflect product quality, people still perceive the quality of products with a large (vs. small) audience to be higher (vs. lower; Studies 1–3), leading to a misallocation of resources to these products. This effect weakens when people are prompted to compare diagnostic and nondiagnostic audience sizes (Study 4) and to deliberate on the cause of audience size before making quality judgments (Study 5). The mere audience-size effect is also less pronounced when people are familiar with a product (Study 6). The present study yields theoretical implications for overgeneralization and quality inference and practical implications for accurate resource commitment.