Cognitive Anchoring of Color Cues on Review Ratings Twenty-third Americas Conference on Information Systems, Boston, 2017 1 Cognitive Anchoring of Color Cues on Online Review Ratings Emergent Research Forum Paper Dario Bonaretti Louisiana State University dbonar1@lsu.edu Marcin Bartosiak University of Pavia ml.bartosiak@universitadipavia.it Gabriele Piccoli Louisiana State University gpiccoli@cct.lsu.edu Abstract Online review systems (ORS) such as TripAdvisor or Yelp collect numeric evaluations from reviewers using interval scales. However, the UI of interval scales differ remarkably across ORS, even though prior research suggests that design cues of the interval scale can bias individual’s interpretation of the scale and thus the numeric evaluations. The impact of the UI on numeric evaluations is particularly relevant in the ORS domain since there is a tight correlation between reviews’ ratings and profits. In this research-in- progress, we outline the theoretical foundation for investigating the cognitive impact of color cues in the interpretation of interval scales, and the possible distortions of numeric evaluations they could lead to. Keywords Online Review, Color Effect, Cognitive Anchor, Cognitive Cue, Framing Effect. Introduction Online review systems (ORS) are web applications (e.g., TripAdvisor, Yelp) for collecting and presenting online reviews: A structured form of user generated content that consists of both numeric and textual peer evaluations of products or services. Building on prior research on cognitive biases and anchoring effect (Tversky and Kahneman 1974), scholars investigated the effect of cognitive biases such as social anchors on user’s review rating (Arazy et al. 2015). Moreover, prior research suggests that also design elements might affect how users interpret the rating scale, and eventually the numeric evaluation (De Langhe et al. 2011). The impact of rating scales’ design on numeric evaluations received limited attention, even if interval scales’ design varies remarkably by the number of intervals, color-design, shape, and labels. To fill this gap, our research looks at the cognitive impact of color cues, testing empirically whether color design elicits anchoring effects and eventually influence numeric evaluations on ORS. From a practical standpoint, cognitive anchoring due to color cues could negatively impact two users’ groups of ORS: (i) review readers, who increasingly ground their purchase decisions on online reviews (Chen and Xie 2008) and (ii) companies, that might use reviews to measure service quality (Duan et al. 2013). Thus, our study contributes to the field of HCI in two ways. First, by looking at how systematic biases can occur in ORS due to the design of the rating scale. In fact, recognizing whether color design distorted numeric ratings constitutes an important proof of concept to encourage further investigation in design-related biases. Second, we extend prior findings on the moderating effect of emotional stability on emotional anchoring due to color design. Theoretical Framework Anchor effect in ORS Prior research conceptualizes anchoring as a phenomenon where “[…] different starting points yield different estimates, which are biased toward the initial value” (Tversky and Kahneman 1974, p. 1128).