An information cascade and group polarization perspective
An information cascade occurs when individuals, having observed the actions and possibly payoffs of those ahead of them, take the same action regardless of their own information signals. Informational cascades may realize only a fraction of the potential gains from aggregating the diverse information of many individuals, which helps explain some otherwise puzzling aspects of human and animal behavior. With the number of global online users increasing day by day, with the anonymity comes with the opportunity for users to propagate numerous negative online rumors. For example, “there was rumor that KFC in China supplied mutated chicken to customers, which aroused anger among customers and made KFC sue the Chinese companies for spreading the rumor.” With the flooded information online, it’s hard to figure out whether or not the rumor is facts or not. A lot of people tend to believe the rumors, or rather be safe than sorry, and avoid the companies that hurts the reputation of these companies.
In this study, it shows that due to thee basis of information cascade, an individual’s belief of an online rumor can depend on the number of postings. Furthermore, the information cascade affects one’s decision heavy in online research; the users are more likely to believing the online rumor when the other users agree with the user or when the other user’s arguments are more consistent in supporting the rumor than when it is more diverse.
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378720617309059
https://cpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sites.uci.edu/dist/c/362/files/2017/01/Palgrave-information-cascades-Online-version.pdf
Sources:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378720617309059