AcademicJournal of Consumer Research, 2024

A weak qualifier cut article picks from 63% to 20%; a strong one cost nothing

Positioning & messaging

20%

chose the recommended article when the comment said “I guess this will be a great article” — against 63% for “I believe” and 63% for no qualifier at all

Reader Note:: Study 2A was an online experiment with 111 Prolific participants randomly assigned to one of three wordings of a prior reader's comment: no qualifier ("This will be a great article"), a strong one ("I believe this will be a great article") or a weak one ("I guess this will be a great article"). Choosing the recommended article meant spending more time reading for the same pay, so this is a costly choice rather than a rating. Picks ran 63% with no qualifier, 63% with the strong qualifier (p = .960 against no qualifier) and 20% with the weak one (p < .001 against both). The strong qualifier therefore cost nothing while the weak one cost 43 points. The paper does not say when the experiment ran.
Evidence:: Experimental
Vendor interest:: None
Sample:: Six online experiments, mostly with Prolific participants; disclosed samples include N=15, 21, 111, 111, 400, 527, and 456, plus 3 independent coders in Study 1.

Good for

Backing budget and pricing decisions in similar situations.

Not for

Situations far from the one tested, without checking again.
This was measured in one market. It may not hold where you are.
The source never says when this data was collected. It could be considerably older than the publication date suggests.