Centre for Health Informatics, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, University of New South Wales , Sydney, Australia.
Appl Clin Inform. 2011 Jun 1;2(2):177-89. doi: 10.4338/ACI-2011-01-RA-0006. Print 2011.
To investigate whether strength of social feedback, i.e. other people who concur (or do not concur) with one's own answer to a question, influences the way one answers health questions.
Online prospective study. Two hundred and twenty-seven undergraduate students were recruited to use an online search engine to answer six health questions. Subjects recorded their pre- and post-search answers to each question and their level of confidence in these answers. After answering each question post-search, subjects were presented with a summary of post-search answers provided by previous subjects and were asked to answer the question again.
There was a statistically significant relationship between the absolute number of others with a different answer (the crowd's opinion volume) and the likelihood of an individual changing an answer (P<0.001). For most questions, no subjects changed their answer until the first 10-35 subjects completed the study. Subjects' likelihood of changing answer increased as the percentage of others with a different answer (the crowd's opinion density) increased (P=0.047). Overall, 98.3% of subjects did not change their answer when it concurred with the majority (i.e. >50%) of subjects, and that 25.7% of subjects changed their answer to the majority response when it did not concur with the majority. When subjects had a post-search answer that did not concur with the majority, they were 24% more likely to change answer than those with answers that concurred (P<0.001).
This study provides empirical evidence that crowd influence, in the form of online social feedback, affects the way consumers answer health questions.
研究他人对问题回答的认同（或不认同）程度，即社会反馈的强度，是否会影响人们回答健康问题的方式。
这是一项在线前瞻性研究。共招募了 227 名本科生，他们使用在线搜索引擎回答 6 个健康问题。受试者记录了他们在搜索前和搜索后的每个问题的答案以及对这些答案的信心程度。在搜索后回答每个问题后，向受试者展示之前其他受试者提供的搜索后答案摘要，并要求他们再次回答问题。
个体改变答案的可能性与他人不同答案的绝对数量（人群意见的音量）之间存在统计学显著关系（P<0.001）。对于大多数问题，直到前 10-35 名受试者完成研究后，才有受试者改变他们的答案。随着不同意见的人群比例（人群意见密度）的增加，受试者改变答案的可能性也随之增加（P=0.047）。总体而言，当答案与大多数人（即>50%）一致时，98.3%的受试者不会改变答案，而当答案与大多数人不一致时，有 25.7%的受试者会改变答案以从众。当受试者的搜索后答案与大多数人不一致时，他们改变答案的可能性比那些答案与大多数人一致的人高 24%（P<0.001）。
本研究提供了实证证据，表明以在线社交反馈形式的群体影响会影响消费者回答健康问题的方式。
