Research has found significant effects of social class on prosocial behavior, but diverging findings for the influence of political ideology. In this study, the aim was to find out whether ideology...Show moreResearch has found significant effects of social class on prosocial behavior, but diverging findings for the influence of political ideology. In this study, the aim was to find out whether ideology influences prosociality towards people of a low or a high social class. This was investigated by conducting an online experiment with liberals and conservatives (N = 294), where they engaged in the social mindfulness (SoMi) task, which served as a measure for prosocial behavior. For the SoMi task, the participants were told to imagine they had an interaction partner who was either of a low social class or high social class. My hypotheses for this research were that liberals would treat targets of a low social class more prosocially than conservatives (H1), that conservatives would treat targets of a high social class more prosocially than liberals (H2) and that the tendencies towards low-class targets would be mediated by perceptions of deservingness and compassion towards them (H3). Although these hypotheses could not be confirmed, there was a significant effect of target class on social mindfulness, indicating that lower-class targets elicited more prosocial behavior than higher-class targets, in line with previous research. In addition to that, political ideology had a significant effect on social mindfulness when controlling for age, which showed that those identifying as very liberal acted more prosocially than those identifying as conservative.Show less
Previous studies on online reviews have mostly concentrated on how the evaluations of products or services are affected by negative commentary. More recent studies have expanded the field of online...Show morePrevious studies on online reviews have mostly concentrated on how the evaluations of products or services are affected by negative commentary. More recent studies have expanded the field of online reviews to investigate readers’ appraisals of the reviewer themselves based on their online comments. Most of this work focused on the effects of anger and showed that anger expressions have detrimental effects on the perceptions of the reviewer and on the informative value of the review. The current research examined whether this is always the case. Building on past findings, this study set out to investigate the effect of managerial responses to angry online reviews on appraisals of the service and the reviewer. This study created three differential managerial response conditions (apologetic, humorous, no response) to an angry online review of an imaginary hotel, and measured review informativeness, reader attitude, appropriateness of emotion, rationality of the reviewer, and the likelihood of the reader to book the reviewed hotel. Data were gathered with an online questionnaire (N = 121). Results found that apologetic responses heightened both reviewer informativeness and rationality appraisals and improved readers’ attitudes towards the service. This study thus concludes that the presence and type of managerial response to angry online reviews do have an effect on how the reviewed product or service is evaluated, and how both the review and the reviewer are perceived.Show less
Using previous research as a basis, the current research elaborates on the effect of online angry reviews, in cases when a managerial response is visibly provided with the review. Respondents were...Show moreUsing previous research as a basis, the current research elaborates on the effect of online angry reviews, in cases when a managerial response is visibly provided with the review. Respondents were shown an online angry review that received either an apologetic managerial response or a humorous managerial response. Study results revealed that a managerial response provided to the angry review would moderate the effect and intensity of perceived anger. Specifically, it was found that apologetic managerial responses caused the review to be perceived as more helpful, and the reviewer as more rational, when compared to angry reviews with no response. However, no significant differences were observed when comparing apologetic with humorous managerial responses. Yet, respondents held more positive attitudes about the company after viewing an apologetic, rather than humorous, managerial response. This research provides beneficial implications, namely that it moderates the previously held opinion that anger always backfires in online reviews, and it puts emphasis on apologetic responses as a type of response that managers should provide to ease the angry review directed at them.Show less
