Introversion and online word-of-mouth behavior : what roles do review website design and product design play?

  • Shu Ting LAU

Student thesis: MPhil Thesis (Lingnan)


This research investigates the online review behavior of introverted customers. Introversion is a major personality trait that has been widely discussed in many personality theories. This thesis includes two essays. Essay 1 investigates how the design of an online review website can affect the willingness to do an online review of introverts. Based on the arousal theory, it is hypothesized that introverted consumers, because of their avoidance of arousal, would have a higher willingness to do online review in an environment where other users’ feedback is not allowed, but this design does not affect extroverts. These predictions are confirmed by our results. Essay 2 investigates how introverts’ WOM behavior responds to anthropomorphized products differently from extroverts. It is hypothesized that since introverts possess less anthropocentric knowledge and are less motivated to engage in social interaction, they are also less likely to anthropomorphize inanimate objects than extroverts, and this difference could exert an influence on their WOM behavior for an anthropomorphized product. Specifically, our results show that introverts could not tell the difference between an anthropomorphized and non-anthropomorphized product, and their willingness to engage in online WOM, unlike extroverts, is not raised by the anthropomorphism design.
Date of Award1 Jan 2020
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • Lingnan University
SupervisorYu Jen CHEN (Supervisor)

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