Effects of Word-of-Mouth and Product-Attribute Information on Persuasion: An Accessibility-Diagnosticity Perspective

The effects of word-of-mouth (WOM) communications and specific attribute information on product evaluations were investigated. A face-to-face WOM communication was more persuasive than a printed format (experiment 1). Although a strong WOM effect was found, this effect was reduced or eliminated when a prior impression of the target brand was available from memory or when extremely negative attribute information was presented (experiment 2). The results suggest that diverse, seemingly unrelated judgmental phenomena—such as the vividness effect, the perseverance effect, and the negativity effect—can be explained through the accessibility-diagnosticity model.