Culture and Self-Congruity in Online Product Ratings: Exploring a Dual Perspective on Emotional Differences in the Pleasure and Pain of Consumption

The nature of the online shopping environment can cause uncertainty; thus, consumers use the product experiences and evaluations of others to make purchase decisions. In this study, we investigated whether online product ratings affect consumers’ consumption-related emotions. We also examined whether the effects of these ratings vary depending on culture and self-congruity. We conducted a PROCESS macro model 12 analysis on 394 subjects (200 American and 194 Chinese) recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and Wenjuanxing to examine interaction effects and mediation effects. The results showed that American consumers focus on the pleasure of consumption when making purchase decisions, whereas Chinese consumers emphasize the pain associated with cost. Specifically, American consumers experience more consumption-based pleasure and have positive purchase intentions when online product ratings are high, regardless of self-congruity. In contrast, Chinese consumers have less adverse reactions to cost and more positive purchase intentions regardless of online product ratings when self-congruity is high; however, when self-congruity is low, this only occurs if online product ratings are high. Our study provided a mechanism for understanding the culturally dependent effects of online product ratings and offered insights into whether consumers’ perceptions of spending pain can be alleviated to drive purchases. Based on these results, we elucidated this study’s academic implications. We also provided practical implications for companies implementing effective online marketing strategies.