An Investigation into How the Modes of Persuasion and Valence affect Perceptions of Online Reviews

Consumers ubiquitously rely on assessments provided by strangers when seeking knowledge or making consumption decisions. Whether buying a car or a toaster, or choosing a restaurant, most consumers would feel lost if they attempted to make these decisions without first seeking verification via an online review. Despite the importance of online reviews in consumers’ daily lives, research on the effectiveness of online reviews is still in elementary stages and questions remain regarding how online review content style affects consumer judgments. Correspondingly, little is known about how message construction (e.g., rhetorical strategies) affects consumer judgments. Using an experimental design, this paper provides a valuable contribution to online review literature by examining the effects of Aristotle’s three modes of persuasion (referred to as “modes” in the manuscript: ethos, pathos, and logos), in conjunction with valence (positive vs. negative), on review usefulness and trustworthiness. To conduct the experiment, a full-factorial between-subjects design was used, resulting in 14 discrete conditions based on modes and valence combinations. In addition, general attitude towards online reviews was included as a control variable. Extensive pretesting and a pilot study were employed to refine stimuli and study design. The study was administered via Qualtrics and TurkPrime to collect data from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) participants with recommended precautions for improving sample quality (e.g., restrict to one IP address). The MTurk data collection resulted in 893 usable questionnaires after accounting for the attention and manipulation checks and sample sizes per cell ranged from 59 to 67 participants. MANCOVA was used to assess manipulation effects on review uselessness and trustworthiness. Multivariate significance was demonstrated for modes, the attitudinal control variable, and valence while univariate results further indicate that both modes and valence significantly affected usefulness and trustworthiness perceptions. Examination of pairwise comparisons suggest a superior positive effect for the logos appeal on both usefulness and trustworthiness. When taking into account valence, results revealed that the superior positive effect of the logos appeal seems to be isolated to negative reviews. This study’s findings highlight the value consumers place on logos appeals over other appeals for negative reviews in an online review context. Organizations should be relieved that participants found pathos appeals in negative reviews to be less trustworthy and usefulness. A supplementary analysis suggests that people perceive pathos-laden negative reviews to be left by a “bad” customer. Organizations and online review platforms should consider using message framing strategies to increase the likelihood of logos appeals to enhance the value that reviews have for consumers

Exploring Impact Philanthropy, Altruistic, Hedonic, and Egoistic Motivations to Support Animal Causes

Due to unpredictable economic turbulence, it is imperative that nonprofit organizations understand and implement segmentation practices to better target donors to maintain continual growth in donations. While such strategies are well implemented in for-profit arenas, non-profit organizations still lag behind in the implementation of segmentation and targeting practices. The targeting of donors by nonprofit organizations tends to be unfocused and sporadic at best. Early research on the practice of segmenting potential donors suggest that nonprofit firms should resist profiling their existing donors based upon demographic characteristics alone and should rely on examining demographic variables in relation to meaningful motivational forces. This study addresses a gap in the literature by examining altruistic, hedonic, impact philanthropy, and egoistic motives in an exploratory fashion to investigate which motivational are the strongest among animal sanctuary supporters. These motivational dimensions are also examined relative to past visitation behavior and membership. In addition, gender and age are examined in the study. A cross-sectional sample of 109 animal sanctuary supporters is obtained from an avian sanctuary in the Southeastern United States and paired sample t-tests were used to examine the relative effects of the motivational dimensions. Results indicate that impact philanthropy was a stronger motivational force than hedonic, altruistic, and egoistic motives. No substantial difference was found between hedonic and altruistic motives while both hedonic and altruistic motives were substantially greater than egoistic motives. In addition, hedonic motives were found to have a substantial relationship with sanctuary membership while past visitation was strongly associated with both impact philanthropy and hedonic motives. As shown in past research women rated higher on altruistic motives while no difference in motives was found based upon age. The results of this study indicate that impact philanthropy may be a major motivational force for donating to animal causes. This finding suggests that animal causes should focus on appeals attractive to impact philanthropists, individuals motivated by the desire to make a difference

Diet Complexity and Estrogen Receptor β Status Affect the Composition of the Murine Intestinal Microbiota

ABSTRACT Intestinal microbial dysbiosis contributes to the dysmetabolism of luminal factors, including steroid hormones (sterones) that affect the development of chronic gastrointestinal inflammation and the incidence of sterone-responsive cancers of the breast, prostate, and colon. Little is known, however, about the role of specific host sterone nucleoreceptors, including estrogen receptor β (ERβ), in microbiota maintenance. Herein, we test the hypothesis that ERβ status affects microbiota composition and determine if such compositionally distinct microbiota respond differently to changes in diet complexity that favor Proteobacteria enrichment. To this end, conventionally raised female ERβ +/+ and ERβ −/− C57BL/6J mice (mean age of 27 weeks) were initially reared on 8604, a complex diet containing estrogenic isoflavones, and then fed AIN-76, an isoflavone-free semisynthetic diet, for 2 weeks. 16S rRNA gene surveys revealed that the fecal microbiota of 8604-fed mice and AIN-76-fed mice differed, as expected. The relative diversity of Proteobacteria , especially the Alphaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria , increased significantly following the transition to AIN-76. Distinct patterns for beneficial Lactobacillales were exclusive to and highly abundant among 8604-fed mice, whereas several Proteobacteria were exclusive to AIN-76-fed mice. Interestingly, representative orders of the phyla Proteobacteria , Bacteroidetes , and Firmicutes , including the Lactobacillales , also differed as a function of murine ERβ status. Overall, these interactions suggest that sterone nucleoreceptor status and diet complexity may play important roles in microbiota maintenance. Furthermore, we envision that this model for gastrointestinal dysbiosis may be used to identify novel probiotics, prebiotics, nutritional strategies, and pharmaceuticals for the prevention and resolution of Proteobacteria -rich dysbiosis

Rapidly cycling Lgr5+ stem cells are exquisitely sensitive to extrinsic dietary factors that modulate colon cancer risk

The majority of colon tumors are driven by aberrant Wnt signaling in intestinal stem cells, which mediates an efficient route toward initiating intestinal cancer. Natural lipophilic polyphenols and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) generally suppress Wnt- and NF-κB- (nuclear factor-κ light-chain enhancer of activated B-cell) related pathways. However, the effects of these extrinsic agents on colonic leucine-rich repeat-containing G-protein-coupled receptor 5-positive (Lgr5(+)) stem cells, the cells of origin of colon cancer, have not been documented to date. Therefore, we examined the effect of n-3 PUFA and polyphenol (curcumin) combination on Lgr5(+) stem cells during tumor initiation and progression in the colon compared with an n-6 PUFA-enriched control diet. Lgr5-EGFP-IRES-(creERT2) knock-in mice were fed diets containing n-6 PUFA (control), n-3 PUFA, n-6 PUFA+curcumin or n-3 PUFA+curcumin for 3 weeks, followed by 6 azoxymethane (AOM) injections, and terminated 17 weeks after the last injection. To further elucidate the effects of the dietary bioactives at the tumor initiation stage, Lgr5(+) stem cells were also assessed at 12 and 24 h post AOM injection. Only n-3 PUFA+curcumin feeding reduced nuclear β-catenin in aberrant crypt foci (by threefold) compared with control at the progression time point. n-3 PUFA+curcumin synergistically increased targeted apoptosis in DNA-damaged Lgr5(+) stem cells by 4.5-fold compared with control at 12 h and maximally reduced damaged Lgr5(+) stem cells at 24 h, down to the level observed in saline-treated mice. Finally, RNAseq analysis indicated that p53 signaling in Lgr5(+) stem cells from mice exposed to AOM was uniquely upregulated only following n-3 PUFA+curcumin cotreatment. These novel findings demonstrate that Lgr5(+) stem cells are uniquely responsive to external dietary cues following the induction of DNA damage, providing a therapeutic strategy for eliminating damaged Lgr5(+) stem cells to reduce colon cancer initiation

The Effects of Soy and Soy Derived Components on the Growth of Estrogen -Dependent Breast Cancer Tumors

156 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2002.The purpose of the studies presented here was to determine if: (1) the chemical form of genistein affects its ability to stimulate the growth of estrogen-dependent breast cancer tumors, (2) the matrix of the food in which the isoflavone is consumed influences its activity in vivo, and (3) genistein would stimulate the growth of chemically induced mammary tumors in rats. The first study was designed to determine if dietary genistin, the glycoside form of genistein, was capable of stimulating the growth of MCF-7 tumors transplanted into athymic mice. Dietary genistin resulted in increased tumor growth rate and cellular proliferation similar to that observed with genistein. The objective of the second study was to evaluate the ability of various soy products containing genistin, but differing in their content of other biologically active components of soy, to affect the growth of MCF-7 tumors. Soy products investigated included whole soy flour, soy molasses, NovasoyRTM, a mixture of isoflavones, and genistin in pure form. Each of the products was fed so that it would provide equivalent amounts of genistin. MCF-7 tumor growth was stimulated in animals consuming soy molasses, NovasoyRTM, the mixture of isoflavones, and genistin alone. Tumors in mice consuming soy flour with an equal concentration of genistin maintained their original size, but did not grow. Collectively these data suggest that the matrix of the food in which genistein is consumed may impact it's activity. The final study was designed to evaluate how genistein would affect growth of chemically-induced mammary tumors in rats. We found that in ovariectomized rats dietary genistein increased the wet weight of tumors compared to control animals.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD