Cognitive bias across generations: The influence of online reviews on consumer decision-making in E-commerce

This study examines whether purchase intentions in response to online review scenarios differ across generational cohorts. Survey data were collected from 1028 Czech online panellists grouped into Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y (Millennials), and Generation Z. Participants evaluated ten fictitious reviews developed around anchoring, attribute emphasis, framing, recency, and hindsight-related cues. Kruskal–Wallis tests yielded nominally significant cohort differences for positive anchoring, design-focused attribute emphasis, positive framing, and the older-review scenario. All four omnibus effect sizes were very small (η 2 H = 0.005–0.009). Holm-adjusted Dunn comparisons identified differences between Baby Boomers and Generations Y and Z for positive anchoring, between Baby Boomers and Generation Z for design-focused attribute emphasis, and between Baby Boomers and Generation Y for the older-review scenario. No pairwise comparison for positive framing remained significant after adjustment. These findings suggest that cohort membership alone provides limited information about responses to the scenarios and does not justify generation-specific review-interface strategies. The attribute-emphasis scenarios vary substantive product information and therefore do not isolate a priming mechanism. More generally, the Czech quota sample, hypothetical purchase-intention measures, and confounded stimuli restrict generalisability and causal interpretation. The study provides exploratory descriptive evidence rather than a basis for inferring stable generational differences in susceptibility to cognitive bias.