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Recommendation acceptance doesn't cost an arm and a leg : the increase of trust and recommendation acceptance through an open posture

Trame, Tobias (2010) Recommendation acceptance doesn't cost an arm and a leg : the increase of trust and recommendation acceptance through an open posture.

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Abstract:In previous research social information was found to increase trust levels. In the present paper, this knowledge was placed in the context of recommendation devices in e-commerce, so called recommendation agents. Two separate studies aimed to answer two central questions. First it was investigated whether social information, or more specific, the open posture of a human-like figure automatically increases the level of trust in the recommendation agent. This was achieved by exposing participants to human-like figures, that adopted an open or closed posture, while the activation level of the trust concept was measured, using a lexical decision task. The hypothesis could be largely confirmed, leading to the second study, which was designed to check for a possible effect of the activation of the trust concept on actual trusting behavior in the form of claim acceptance. This was accomplished by confronting participants with claims in conjunction with open, closed, and neutral postured human-like figures, and asking them to indicate whether they judged the claims as trustworthy. The obtained results suggest partial confirmation of the hypothesis, limited in the way that only integrity-related claims were more readily accepted when presented in conjunction with an open postured figure. Based on the results of both studies, it was concluded that two mechanisms might be held accountable for the effect of posture on trusting behavior, one more automatic, and the other more deliberate.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology MSc (66604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/60538
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