Unpacking the experience of individuals engaging in incentivized false (and genuine) positive reviews: The impact on brand satisfaction

In this paper, we seek to understand how an exchange, where a consumer receives a product from a brand and, in return, leaves an incentivized false positive review, affects that consumer and his/her relationship with that brand. We seek to do that by comparing the impact of leaving an incentivized false positive review to that of leaving an incentivized genuine positive review. We conducted two online experiments to explore whether leaving an incentivized false positive review (vs. incentivized genuine positive review) leads customers to feel guilty, impacting their satisfaction with the brand. To offer a more comprehensive understanding of these relationships, we also investigated whether customers’ levels of amorality and intrinsic religiosity affect the impact of leaving an incentivized (false and genuine) positive review on guilt and customer satisfaction. Our findings allow us to suggest several interesting theoretical and managerial implications.