Does Malicious Envy of E-WOM Receivers Towards Senders Result in Avoidance of the Recommended Product?

The original form of the regulatory focus theory has proposed that persons with a promotional focus regard the existence of positive outcomes as important, whereas persons with a prevention focus regard the absence of negative outcomes as important. However, more recently, the theory has been extended to claim that the former group of persons s outcomes cognitively, whereas the latter evaluates the same outcomes more emotionally. Employing the extended version of regulatory focus theory, this study hypothesized that eWOM receivers with the promotional focus would be likely to avoid recommended products, eWOM receivers with the prevention focus would be more likely to adopt them, in contrast with previous research that has hypothesized that all eWOM receivers would avoid recommended products. To test this hypothesis, ANOVA was conducted using a dataset from a consumer experiment. Consequently, our hypothesis was supported.