Selective exposure in action: Do visitors of product evaluation portals select reviews in a biased manner?

Most people in industrialized countries regularly purchase products online. Consumers often rely on previous customers’ reviews to make purchasing decisions. The current research investigates whether potential online customers select these reviews in a biased way and whether typical interface properties of product evaluation portals foster biased selection. Based on selective exposure research, potential online customers should have a bias towards selecting positive reviews when they have an initial preference for a product. We tested this prediction across five studies (total N = 1376) while manipulating several typical properties of the review selection interface that should – according to earlier findings – facilitate biased selection. Across all studies, we found some evidence for a bias in favor of selecting positive reviews, but the aggregated effect was non-significant in an internal meta-analysis. Contrary to our hypothesis and not replicating previous research, none of the interface properties that were assumed to increase biased selection led to the predicted effects. Overall, the current research suggests that biased information selection, which has regularly been found in many other contexts, only plays a minor role in online review selection. Thus, there is no need to fear that product evaluation portals elicit biased impressions about products among consumers due to selective exposure.