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. Copyright 1991 by the University of Chicago.