The Illusion of Authenticity in Online Reviews: Truth Bias and the Role of Valence

Despite a growing stream of research documenting the prevalence of “fake” online reviews and improving their automated detection, little is known about how consumers make real or fake judgments of reviews with unknown veracity. Integrating literature on truth-default theory and deception motives, we propose that consumers have a general tendency to view reviews as real rather than fake (a truth bias) and to be more accurate at detecting real reviews than fake reviews (a veracity effect). Moreover, we argue that the truth bias is weaker for positive reviews than negative reviews (a valence effect) because of a largely automatic process in which consumers project deception motives onto reviewers. To test these proposals, we conducted five experiments in which participants classified sets of reviews as real or fake. Results provided broad support for our theorizing, and they have important implications for firms and platforms as they establish priorities for combating fake reviews.