Reading Online Reviews in Foreign Versus Native Language: Effects on Consumers’ Perceptions, Attitudes and Intentions

Reading and thinking in a foreign versus in the native language is associated with weaker emotional responses and weaker mental imagery. Despite the importance of online reviews and their inherent language diversity, there is no previous research looking into the Foreign Language Effect (FLE) in this domain. An experiment that studied the FLE in the context of online hotel reviews finds no effect of language on imagery vividness or perceived review extremity regardless of the valence of the reviews, with imagery vividness positively affecting perceived review extremity. We find evidence that consumers reading the reviews in a foreign (versus native) language rating the hotel more positively.