Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied © 2018 American Psychological Association

2018, Vol. 24, No. 2, 159 –179 1076-898X/18/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xap0000161

Motivated Reconstruction: The Effect of Brand Commitment

on False Memories

Nicole Votolato Montgomery Priyali Rajagopal

University of Virginia University of South Carolina

Across 5 studies, we examine the effect of prior brand commitment on the creation of false memories
about product experience after reading online product reviews. We find that brand commitment and the
valence of reviews to which consumers are exposed, interact to affect the incidence of false memories.
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Thus, highly committed consumers are more susceptible to the creation of false experience memories on
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exposure to positive versus negative reviews, whereas low commitment consumers exhibit similar levels
of false memories in response to both positive and negative reviews. Further, these differences across
brand commitment are attenuated when respondents are primed with an accuracy motivation, suggesting
that the biasing effects of commitment are likely because of the motivation to defend the committed
brand. Finally, we find that differences in false memories subsequently lead to differences in intentions
to spread word-of-mouth (e.g., recommend the product to friends), suggesting that the consequences of
false product experience memories can be significant for marketers and consumers. Our findings
contribute to the literatures in false memory and marketing by documenting a motivated bias in false
memories because of brand commitment.

Public Significance Statement

The present research suggests that reading detailed online reviews may lead consumers to errone-
ously misremember previous experiences with the products reviewed, which did not actually occur,
leading to increased intentions to engage in word-of-mouth about the products. This effect is
especially likely among consumers who read positive reviews of a brand to which they are highly
committed.

Keywords: memory reconstruction, commitment, online reviews, consumer psychology, false memories

Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xap0000161.supp

Online reviews have become a critical source of information for
consumers with 88% of consumers trusting online reviews as
much as personal recommendations when making purchase deci-
sions (BrightLocal, 2016; DeMers, 2015), and 40% of consumers
utilizing only three or fewer reviews to form an opinion (Ander-
son, 2015). In this research, we focus on a consequence of expo-
sure to online reviews that has received little prior attention—
consumer memories of brand experience. Consumer memories are
important for marketers owing to their significant effects on con-
sumer opinions and behaviors (Chattopadhyay & Alba, 1988;
Zauberman, Ratner, & Kim, 2009), and we focus on the conditions
under which online reviews may facilitate false consumer memo-
ries about past product experience.
This article was published Online First February 1, 2018.
Nicole Votolato Montgomery, McIntire School of Commerce, Univer-
sity of Virginia; Priyali Rajagopal, Marketing Moore School of Business,
University of South Carolina.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Priyali
Rajagopal, Marketing Moore School of Business, University of South
Carolina, 1705 College Street, Columbia, SC 29208. E-mail: priyali
.rajagopal@moore.sc.edu
Research on the reconstructive nature of human memory
(Braun, 1999; Braun-LaTour, LaTour, Pickrell, Loftus, & Distin-
guish, 2004; Brewer, 1986; Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993;
Schacter, 2013) suggests that people may recreate a recent expe-
rience (e.g., a visit to a favorite restaurant) by integrating infor-
mation obtained from multiple sources, both internal (e.g., past
experiences dining at the restaurant) and external (e.g., online
reviews of the restaurant). An inability to distinguish between
these sources of information often leads people to misattribute the
recollections to personal experience, that is, source monitoring
errors (Belli & Loftus, 1994; Lindsay, 2008; Lindsay & Read,
1994; Loftus & Davis, 2006; Thomas, Hannula, & Loftus, 2007;
Zaragoza, Belli, & Payment, 2006). Thus, people may erroneously
recall entire experiences or details about experiences that did not
occur; such mistaken recollections are termed false memories
(Bernstein, Scoboria, & Arnold, 2015; Braun, 1999; Brewin &
Andrews, 2017; LaTour, LaTour, & Brainerd, 2014; Loftus, 1997,
2003). These findings raise the intriguing possibility that on read-
ing detailed online reviews, consumers may erroneously believe
that experiences described in the reviews occurred to them (e.g.,
believing one ate a delicious dessert that was described in a
restaurant review but never actually eaten). We examine when and

159
 160 MONTGOMERY AND RAJAGOPAL
how such memory distortions because of online reviews may occur
and the consequences of these distortions on subsequent consumer
word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions (i.e., willingness to tell others
about an experience; Chen & Berger, 2016). Given the prevalence
of misleading and inaccurate online reviews (Malbon, 2013), our
findings are important at highlighting an additional potential del-
eterious consequence of such reviews.
Specifically, we propose that a consumer’s prior relationship
with a brand (i.e., brand commitment) will moderate the recon-
struction of past product experience after reading online reviews.
Brand commitment has been defined as the “psychological or
emotional attachment” of a consumer to a brand (Krosnick, Bon-
inger, Chuang, Berent, & Carnot, 1993; Pomerantz, Chaiken, &
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Tordesillas, 1995). Because work in consumer psychology has
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shown that brand commitment motivates people to be positively
biased in processing information about that brand (Ahluwalia,
Unnava, & Burnkrant, 2001), we expect that brand commitment
will also bias people’s false memories of past brand experiences on
exposure to online reviews, depending on the review valence.
Thus, we anticipate that consumers who are highly committed to a
brand will be more susceptible to the creation of false memories on
exposure to positive versus negative reviews, whereas low com-
mitment respondents will not differ in their susceptibility to false
memories by review valence.
We begin by referencing key findings from the research on
brand commitment and false memory to formulate our hypotheses.
We then present five empirical studies that test our predictions.
Studies 1–3 document the moderating role of brand commitment
on false memories of past product experience. Study 4 investigates
the mediating role of motivation. Finally, Study 5 showcases the
downstream consequences of false memories on consumer WOM
intentions. We conclude with a summary of our findings and
contributions.
Prior Literature
Online reviews are becoming more prevalent, and consumers
increasingly trust and rely on this source of information when
making product choices (Berger, 2014; Godes & Mayzlin, 2004).
Because online reviews have become such an integral factor in
consumer decision making, much research has focused on the
relative impact of positive versus negative reviews on purchase
decisions (Forman, Ghose, & Wiesenfeld, 2008; Naylor, Lamber-
ton, & Norton, 2011), and in general, has found that negative
reviews have a greater effect on consumer decisions than positive
reviews. Hence, research has sought to elucidate the harmful
effects of negative reviews for brands in terms of brand attitudes,
choices and market share (Cheema & Papatla, 2010; Chevalier &
Mayzlin, 2006; Liu, 2006; Moe & Trusov, 2011; Zhu & Zhang,
2010). We build on this literature by focusing on the effects of
online reviews on a previously unexplored outcome—that is, con-
sumers’ false memories of past product experience, and suggest
that such memory errors are moderated by a consumer’s prior
commitment to the brand to which such reviews pertain. Specifi-
cally, our work demonstrates that reading online reviews can affect
consumer memories of past product experiences, that these mem-
ories vary as a function of consumers’ prior commitment to the
reviewed brand (i.e., moderating role of brand commitment on
false memories), and, importantly, that these false product expe-
rience memories mediate the effect of consumers’ propensity to
spread WOM about the product.
Brand commitment has been documented as an important di-
mension of attitude strength (Krosnick et al., 1993; Pomerantz et
al., 1995), with high levels of commitment leading to stronger
attitudes that are harder to change (Wood, Rhodes, & Biek, 1995),
and greater brand loyalty (Kumar, Pozza, & Ganesh, 2013). Brand
commitment is also an important moderator of information pro-
cessing (Ahluwalia, Burnkrant, & Unnava, 2000; Ahluwalia et al.,
2001), with research documenting different information processing
motivations among consumers, such that high commitment con-
sumers tend to be defense motivated, while low commitment
consumers tend to be accuracy motivated (Ahluwalia, 2000). Thus,
consumers who are highly committed to a brand are motivated to
engage in biased information processing to defend and preserve
their positive attitudinal position toward their committed brand
(Jain & Maheswaran, 2000; Raju, Unnava, & Montgomery, 2009).
They, accordingly, tend to resist information that is contrary to
their attitudes, and prefer to process, and consequently accept,
information that supports their positive conclusions about the
brand (Kruglanski & Webster, 1996; Kunda, 1990), while scruti-
nizing information that is inconsistent with their prior brand views
to a greater extent (Hamilton, Katz, & Leirer, 1980; Thompson,
Roman, Moskowitz, Chaiken, & Bargh, 1994). Therefore, when
high commitment consumers are faced with negative information
about their committed brand, they are more likely than low com-
mitment consumers to counter argue, decrease the perceived va-
lidity of such attitude-inconsistent information, and reduce the
relative weight placed on attributes that are negatively impacted by
the information (Ahluwalia, 2000). On the other hand, low com-
mitment consumers are not attached to a brand, and as such, tend
to change their attitudes more readily in response to new informa-
tion (Ahluwalia et al., 2001). Their accuracy motivation reduces
cognitive biases on exposure to new brand information, and facil-
itates equivalent processing of both brand consistent and inconsis-
tent information (Ahluwalia, 2000; Thompson et al., 1994). We
suggest that these differing motivations exhibited by high versus
low commitment consumers on exposure to information about a
preferred brand will result in differences in their reported false
memories of product experience.
Past work has shown support for such motivational distortions
of memory. For example, the positivity bias in autobiographical
memories (Matlin & Stang, 1978; Talarico, LaBar, & Rubin, 2004)
has been attributed to a motivation to self-enhance and self-protect
(Skowronski, 2011; Taylor & Brown, 1988), leading to greater
forgetting of negative life events than positive life events. Mather
and colleagues examined choice-supportive source-monitoring bi-
ases, and showed that respondents distorted memories of product
attributes after making choices in order to justify their choices
(e.g., Mather, Shafir, & Johnson, 2003). Relatedly, other work has
shown that source misattributions, which give rise to false memory
(Lindsay & Read, 1994; Loftus & Davis, 2006; Thomas et al.,
2007; Zaragoza et al., 2006), are influenced by preferred outcomes
(Barber, Gordon, & Franklin, 2009; Gordon, Franklin, & Beck,
2005). In a marketing context, Dalton and Huang (2014) docu-
mented that consumers were motivated to forget brand promotions
(e.g., discounts for university students) when the promotions
threatened some aspect of consumer self-identity (e.g., students
who read negative news about their university reported lower
 EFFECT OF BRAND COMMITMENT ON FALSE MEMORIES
memories for promotions that were linked to their student iden-
tity). Overall, this stream of research suggests that motivation can
play a significant role in altering memory, and we extend these
findings by examining the role of a motivational individual differ-
ence variable— brand commitment—as a moderator to false mem-
ories.
More specifically, we posit that the differing motivations asso-
ciated with brand commitment (high vs. low) will affect the
perceived plausibility of the situations depicted in online reviews,
and, hence, their reported false memories of past product experi-
ence. Research in false memory has found that the plausibility of
an event, that is, the likelihood of the event’s occurrence (Pezdek,
Blandon-Gitlin, Lam, Hart, & Schooler, 2006; Pezdek, Finger, &
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Hodge, 1997) is an important moderator to the generation of false
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memories. Thus, individuals are less likely to incorporate misin-
formation into their memories of an event when that information
describes an event that is implausible (unlikely to have occurred;
Mazzoni, Loftus, & Kirsch, 2001; Pezdek & Blandon-Gitlin, 2017;
Pezdek et al., 1997), because they are presumably more likely to
correctly attribute the information to its source, rather than misat-
tributing it to their personal experience (Johnson, 2006; Johnson et
al., 1993; Johnson & Raye, 1981, 2000; Mitchell & Johnson, 2000,
2009). For example, research has shown that events that were more
consistent with individuals’ script-level knowledge (i.e., memory
traces for similar, related experiences) and, thus more likely to
have occurred in the past (e.g., increased plausibility of the false
memory) were more likely to result in memory errors. Consistent
with this conclusion, Pezdek et al. (1997) demonstrated that re-
spondents were more likely to incorrectly believe that they had
performed a religious ritual, if the ritual was consistent with the
rituals of the religion with which they identified versus another
religion (e.g., Catholic ritual for Catholic respondents vs. Jewish
ritual for Catholic respondents). Research also suggests that the
plausibility of an event can vary, such that the same event is
perceived as differentially plausible by different individuals (i.e.,
subjective plausibility; Hyman, 1999). For example, work has
found that differential beliefs in alien visitations led to differential
rates of false memory incidence of being abducted by aliens
(Spanos, Cross, Dickson, & DuBreuil, 1993). Thus, the subjective
plausibility of an event is an important moderator to the generation
of false memories, and we posit that high brand commitment will
motivate a relative reduction (increase) in the subjective plausibil-
ity of a negative (positive) brand experience described in an online
review.
That is, high commitment consumers will be more likely to
believe that they have had a previous experience with the reviewed
product (when in fact they did not) after reading positive rather
than negative online reviews about their preferred brand. Because
the situations depicted in the positive reviews will be similar to
their own past experiences and memories of the brand and, there-
fore, more plausible than those depicted in the negative reviews,
high commitment consumers should have more difficulty distin-
guishing between the review and their own personal experience
with the brand as the source of the information (Johnson, Foley, &
Leach, 1988; Johnson, Raye, Wang, & Taylor, 1979; Lampinen,
Copeland, & Neuschatz, 2001; Lindsay, Johnson, & Kwon, 1991;
Mather, Henkel, & Johnson, 1997; Mitchell & Zaragoza, 2001;
Roediger & McDermott, 1995; Schacter, Norman, & Koutstaal,
1998), resulting in a greater likelihood of attributing the review
161
information to their own experience. That is, high commitment
consumers misattribute the source of the positive misinformation
to their own prior experience rather than to the reviews they read,
leading to a greater incidence of false memories. On the other
hand, when exposed to negative reviews, the situations contained
in the reviews will be dissimilar to their own past experiences and
memories, and hence less plausible, resulting in a lower likelihood
of source misattribution to personal experience, and subsequently
fewer false memories.
In contrast, low commitment consumers are likely to carefully
consider both positive and negative reviews, allowing them to
more precisely recognize that the reviews are not entirely indica-
tive of their past brand experiences (i.e., less plausible), consistent
with past work that has shown that deliberate processes in which
people more carefully scrutinize memories decreases source mis-
attributions, and, as a consequence, false memories (Henkel,
Franklin, & Johnson, 2000; Parker, Garry, Engle, Harper, & Cli-
fasefi, 2008). Thus, regardless of valence, low commitment con-
sumers ought to accurately attribute the situations depicted to the
online reviews rather than misattribute them to their own experi-
ence, enabling more accurate reconstruction (Thompson et al.,
1994) of both positive and negative information. In summary, we
predict that high commitment consumers will report more false
memories on exposure to positive than negative online reviews,
whereas low commitment consumers will report equivalent inci-
dences of false memory regardless of review valence.
We conducted five studies to test our predictions. Studies 1–3
examine brand commitment as a moderator of false memory
incidence and consistently find that highly committed respondents
show a positive bias in false brand memories, while respondents
who are low in brand commitment do not exhibit this bias in their
brand memories. Study 4 supports motivation as the underlying
process for the role of brand commitment and finds that priming an
accuracy motivation attenuates the effects found in Studies 1–3.
Finally, Study 5 elucidates the implications of false memories on
consumer WOM intentions. The general procedure across all stud-
ies involves having participants provide their preferred brand and
rate their commitment to that brand (enabling us to delineate
between high and low commitment respondents), read a series of
online reviews about a fictitious product from that brand, and after
a delay, report their memory of previous experiences with the
product. We use different products (pizza, shoes) and false mem-
ory measures (product usage, beliefs about experience, RKG, and
memory confidence) across our studies to enhance the generaliz-
ability of our findings.
Study 1
Method
Study 1, and the four subsequent presented studies, received
approval from the Institutional Review Board at the University of
Virginia.
Before the main study, we conducted a pretest to test our
assertion that plausibility of negative experiences is impacted by
respondents’ commitment to a brand. In Study 1, and the four
subsequent presented studies, participants were recruited from
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service in return for monetary com-
pensation. Forty-one respondents participated in an online survey.
 162 MONTGOMERY AND RAJAGOPAL
They first reported their commitment toward their preferred brand
of pizza using a 4-item, 7-point scale (e.g., “I consider myself to be
highly loyal to preferred brand”; ␣ ⫽ .76; Raju & Unnava, 2006,
see Table 1). Subsequently, they evaluated the plausibility of
having a negative experience with this preferred brand of pizza
using a single item scale (“How likely are you to have negative
experiences with preferred brand?”). Consistent with expecta-
tions, a regression analysis revealed a significant negative effect of
brand commitment (b ⫽ ⫺0.32, SE ⫽ 0.15), F(1, 40) ⫽ 4.54, p ⫽
.04, ␩p2 ⫽ .10, such that negative brand experiences were perceived
to be less likely as brand commitment increased.
The main study was a 2 (review valence: positive vs. nega-
tive) ⫻ (commitment: measured, continuous) between-subjects
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study and was conducted in two parts. In the first part, 232
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respondents provided the name of their preferred brand of pizza
and completed the same measure of commitment to this brand as
in the pretest (␣ ⫽ .78). Subsequently, they read three reviews for
a fictitious variant of pizza (“The Natural”). We used a fictitious
variant to ensure that brand memories reported would be false,
since respondents could not have possibly tried the fictitious
variant. Thus, each respondent saw the same review information
for the same product, but the brand name was always their pre-
ferred brand and hence varied between respondents (e.g., Domi-
no’s The Natural, Pizza Hut The Natural, etc.). The reason for
tailoring the reviews to the respondents’ preferred brand was to
ensure that our results were attributable to differences in commit-
ment, rather than brand preference or attitude.1
The reviews varied on valence such that respondents read either
three positive reviews or three negative reviews (see supplemen-
tary materials). We measured the time taken to read the set of
reviews to rule out differences in attention to positive versus
negative brand information by commitment level. Respondents
then completed a series of filler questions along with a three-item,
7-point scale measure (␣ ⫽ .88) of task involvement (e.g., “I was
concentrating very hard while reading the reviews”), which was
included as an additional measure of attention paid to the reviews.
The study concluded with demographic measures (e.g., age, gen-
der). None of the demographic measures had any significant ef-
fects in this study, or any other study and are not referred to
further. Two days after completing the first part of the study,
respondents were sent an email invitation to complete a second
survey, which contained our target measure— open-ended product
experience recall. Respondents were asked to tell us about any
experience that they had with (brand) The Natural. They were also
informed that if they did not have any experience with this specific
product, they should state so, rather than writing about their
experience. We included this instruction to minimize demand
effects, as well as the likelihood of respondents reporting their
prior brand experiences as having been experiences with “The
Natural.” After completing the survey, respondents were de-
briefed.
In line with past research (Scoboria et al., 2017), we utilized a
coding scheme that assessed beliefs about past experience, as well
as the subjective experience of recalling the event. Two coders—
blind to the hypotheses— coded each respondent’s recall for epi-
sodic and semantic details, as well as statements of doubt about
past product experience. Episodic details refer to statements ref-
erencing personal experiences with the product (e.g., “I remember
buying the pizza in the supermarket”), semantic details refer to
statements about product attributes or features which were not
representative of personal experience (e.g., “the Natural pizza has
a crispy thin crust”), and the doubt statements refer to statements
expressing lack of confidence in memories of the experience (e.g.,
I believed I tried this pizza several years ago but I am not sure”).
Because episodic details are assumed to come from memories of
personal experience with the product, high recall of episodic
details with low doubt would reflect greater incidence of false
memories. Interrater reliability was 86%, and disagreements were
resolved via discussion. In total, 165 respondents completed both
parts of the study (Mage ⫽ 39.5 years, SDage ⫽ 10.3 years, 42.4%
male), with no differences in the dropout rate by experimental
condition (ps ⬎ .10).
Results
Manipulation checks. There were no differences in the time
spent reading the reviews across conditions, Fs(1, 161) ⬍ 1.10,
ps ⬎ .30, thus, ruling out differential attention as an explanation
for our results. There was a main effect of self-reported involve-
ment, b ⫽ .10, F(1, 161) ⫽ 4.88, p ⫽ .03, ␩p2 ⫽ .03, with high
commitment consumers reporting more involvement in the study
than low commitment consumers. However, involvement was not
a significant covariate when included in any of the analyses, Fs(1,
160) ⬍ 2.37, ps ⬎ .13, nor did it change the pattern of results, and
hence we report all analyses without the inclusion of this covariate.
False recall. To examine false recall of past product experi-
ence, we regressed the number of episodic details, semantic de-
tails, and statements expressing doubt separately on commitment
(M ⫽ 4.73, SD ⫽ 1.35), review valence, and the interaction
between commitment and review valence, episodic details model:
F(3, 161) ⫽ 3.24, p ⫽ .02, R2 ⫽ .06, semantic details model: F(3,
161) ⫽ 1.48, p ⫽ .01, R2 ⫽ .06, doubt model: F ⬍ 1. The results
revealed a significant interaction between review valence and
commitment on episodic details (b ⫽ 0.47, SE ⫽ 0.18), F(1,
161) ⫽ 7.08, p ⫽ .02, ␩p2 ⫽ .04. A spotlight analysis at ⫾1 SD
showed that high commitment respondents reported more episodic
recall details when they read the positive versus negative reviews
(b ⫽ 0.77, SE ⫽ 0.34), t(161) ⫽ 2.26, p ⬍ .01, d ⫽ .36, with no
differences in episodic details for low commitment respondents by
review valence (b ⫽ ⫺0.51, SE ⫽ 0.34), t(161) ⫽ ⫺1.51, p ⫽ .13,
d ⫽ .24 (see Figure 1). Further, the main effect of review valence
on episodic details was significant (b ⫽ ⫺2.11, SE ⫽ 0.87), F(1,
161) ⫽ 5.83, p ⫽ .02, ␩p2 ⫽ .03, with higher false recall for positive
as compared with negative reviews, but the main effect of brand
commitment was not significant, F ⬍ 1. An analysis of the
semantic details, Fs(1, 161) ⬍ 1.73, ps ⬎ .19, and doubt state-
ments, Fs(1, 161) ⬍ 2.06, ps ⬎ .15, showed no significant main or
interactive effects of reviews.
Discussion
The results of Study 1 provide evidence for the interactive effect
of brand commitment and review valence on the creation of false
1
Previous research has documented that although commitment is cor-
related with brand preference and attitudes, it is a different construct from
these two constructs. For example, one can have positive attitudes, and
high brand preference without high commitment.
 EFFECT OF BRAND COMMITMENT ON FALSE MEMORIES 163

Table 1
Measures Used in Studies 1–5

Dependent
measures Scales

Perceived usage Below, there is a list of various types of products. Please select all of the products that you believe you have tried at least once.
Product experience Select all of the statements that apply to ____ (product).
belief statements False statements
1. I have tried this product.
2. I have purchased this product.
3. I have seen this product in stores.
4. I have heard about this product from other people.
True statements
1. I have read a review for this product.
2. I do not know this product.
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Commitment 1. I consider myself to be highly loyal to ____ (product).

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2. If ____ (product) were not available at the store, it would bother me if I had to choose another brand.
3. I would be very happy to purchase ____ (product) every time I have a need to purchase ______ (product).
4. I enjoy talking about ____ (product) with my friends.
Product R/K/G We are now interested in how strongly you remember your experience (vs. lack of experience) of trying ____ (brand variant).
Please choose one of the six statements listed below that best describes your memory of trying this product. (1–6)
1. I remember very clearly that I have never used this product, and I am certain that I have no usage experience with this
product.
2. I know that I have never used this product, but I cannot remember this lack of product usage experience very clearly.
3. I am guessing that I have not used this product.
4. I am guessing that I have used this product.
5. I know that I have used this product, but I cannot remember specific details about my product usage experience.
6. I remember my experience of using this product, and I can recall details about my product usage experience.
Memory How confident are you in your memory of whether or not you have ever tried ____ product? (1 ⫽ very confident that I have
confidence never tried it, 7 ⫽ very confident that I have tried it at least once)
WOM intentions 1. How likely would you be to recommend ____ Hyperdrive athletic shoes to a friend? (1 ⫽ very unlikely, 7 ⫽ very likely)
2. How likely are you to tell other people about your experience with ____ Hyperdrive athletic shoes? (1 ⫽ very unlikely, 7 ⫽
very likely)
3. How willing are you to discuss ____ Hyperdrive athletic shoes with other people? (1 ⫽ very unwilling, 7 ⫽ very willing)
4. How likely are you to discuss ____ Hyperdrive athletic shoes on websites such as Facebook and Twitter? (1 ⫽ very unlikely,
7 ⫽ very likely)
5. How willing are you to discuss ____ Hyperdrive athletic shoes on websites such as Facebook and Twitter? (1 ⫽ very
unwilling, 7 ⫽ very willing)
6. How likely are you to post a review of ____ Hyperdrive athletic shoes on a product review website? (1 ⫽ very unlikely, 7 ⫽
very likely)
7. How willing are you to post a review of ____ Hyperdrive athletic shoes on a product review website? (1 ⫽ very unwilling,
7 ⫽ very willing)
Note. R/K/G ⫽ Remember/Know/Guess; WOM ⫽ word-of-mouth.

experience memories. Specifically, at higher levels of commit-
ment, respondents reported more episodic details of false past
product experience on being exposed to positive as compared with
negative reviews, whereas at lower levels of commitment, respon-
dents’ false recall did not differ by review valence. These results
allow us to isolate the effects found on false memory to brand
commitment, and rule out some alternate explanations for our
findings. First, because we allowed the target brand to vary such
that the target brand was always a consumer’s preferred brand, we
were able to differentiate between brand preference and brand
commitment, and attribute our results to commitment alone. Sec-
ond, the lack of difference in the time spent reading the reviews
helps rule out differential attention as an alternate explanation.
Finally, Study 1 offers some support for our assertion that
differences in subjective plausibility contribute to the moderating
role of brand commitment on false memories of past product
experience. Specifically, in our pretest, we found a negative cor-
relation between plausibility of a negative experience and com-
mitment, suggesting that as commitment increases, negative expe-
riences are seen as being less likely (implausible). This is
consistent with our motivational processing account, in that high
brand commitment respondents were more likely to perceive re-
view information to be plausible and integrate that information
into their autobiographical memories of the brand, when the re-
view information was consistent with their previous brand expe-
riences (i.e., positive valence).
Study 2
In Study 2, we further investigate the effect of brand commit-
ment on the creation of false memories, with a focus on addressing
demand effects as a potential alternate account of our observed
pattern of results. Specifically, Study 1 shows that the manner in
which consumers process information (i.e., relating reviews to
one’s own personal experience) contributes to more episodic de-
tails about past product experience, leading to false memories. Our
contention is that these false product experience memories emerge
because consumers incorrectly attribute review information to past
experience with a brand, consistent with past research on false
memory and source monitoring errors (Bernstein, Laney, Morris,
 164 MONTGOMERY AND RAJAGOPAL
Posive reviews
1.80
1.60
1.40
1.20
Episodic Details
1.00 0.99
0.80
0.60
0.48
0.40
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0.20
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0.00
Low commitment (-1SD)
Figure 1. The effect of brand commitment and review valence on false product experience episodic details in
Study 1. Error bars denote SE.
& Loftus, 2005; Geraerts et al., 2008). However, a potential
alternative account is that high commitment consumers’ false
memories arise due to demand effects—that is, high commitment
consumers report that they have previous experience with a ficti-
tious product by a preferred brand because they believe such
experience is indicative of their commitment to the brand, or
because they infer experience as a result of their commitment (e.g.,
I must have tried this variant because I love the brand and try
everything from it).
Study 2 was designed to test this possibility and also enhance
our understanding of when false memories arise. Specifically, if
high commitment consumers report false memories about past
product experience as a function of demand effects, the inci-
dence of false memories should be equivalent regardless of
whether they are assessed immediately after reading product
reviews or after a delay. However, if high commitment con-
sumers report false memories because they truly believe that
they have experienced the product, we should observe an in-
crease in reported false memories after a delay between infor-
mation exposure and recall, when they are more likely to
misattribute the review information to personal experience,
rather than correctly attributing it to the reviews which they
read. This prediction follows from research on source monitor-
ing that has found that source misattributions increase over time
(Ackil & Zaragoza, 1995; Lindsay & Johnson, 2000; Zaragoza
& Mitchell, 1996). Accordingly, we assess false memories
immediately after exposure to reviews versus after a delay.
Another objective of Study 2 was to examine the robustness of
our findings by using different memory measures from Study 1. To
that end, we included four different measures of false memory
incidence, all derived from past research. Finally, we also mea-
sured product usage frequency and product familiarity to rule these
out as alternate explanations for our findings, since prior research
has found that brand commitment is positively correlated with both
of these variables (Raju et al., 2009).
Method
Study 2 was a (commitment: measured, continuous) ⫻ 2 (review
valence: positive vs. negative) ⫻ 2 (timing: immediate vs. delay)
Negave reviews
1.48
0.71
High commitment (+1SD)
between-subjects design. We used the same reviews and procedure
as Study 1, with one exception. Half of the respondents completed
the target measures for the fictitious pizza product 1 week after
reading the reviews (“delay” condition), whereas the other half
completed the measures in the same survey in which they read the
reviews, after a short filler task (“immediate” condition). There
were 513 respondents who completed the first part of the study,
and in total, 239 respondents completed all parts of the study.
Seventeen respondents were dropped from further analysis for
failing to follow study instructions, resulting in a final sample size
of 222 respondents (Mage ⫽ 33.7 years, SDage ⫽ 11.4 years, 60.8%
male). An analysis revealed no differences in the dropout rate by
experimental condition (ps ⬎ .10).
We asked respondents to report how frequently they eat pizzas
(1 ⫽ very infrequently, 7 ⫽ very frequently) as a measure of
product familiarity. In addition, we incorporated four false mem-
ory measures that have been used in past research to increase
confidence in the robustness of our findings—memory confidence
(Hyman & Pentland, 1996), product RKG (LaTour et al., 2014),
perceived usage and product experience belief statements (Rajago-
pal & Montgomery, 2011).
Memory confidence was assessed using a single-item scale
adapted from Hyman and Pentland (1996) that incorporated the
false belief itself (e.g., “I have/have not tried the brand”) and the
strength with which the belief was held (e.g., “I am very confident
in my memory”). The second memory measure was adapted from
a traditional R/K/G (Remember/Know/Guess) measure, which was
broadened to encompass all situations in which individuals believe
that they have not had a particular experience, irrespective of
experience valence. This measure was included to test our predic-
tions regarding the incidences of false brand experience memories.
A “remember” judgment represents a clear memory of using or not
using the product, including details of the experience (i.e., recol-
lection or nonrecollection of experience). A “know” judgment
represents a less concrete memory of using or not using the
product that is based on familiarity or lack of familiarity rather
than clear details. Finally, a “guess” judgment represents a lack of
clear recollection and, hence, random selection (i.e., inference).
Respondents were asked to select one of six statements that best
 EFFECT OF BRAND COMMITMENT ON FALSE MEMORIES 165

represented how strongly they remembered their experience with
the product, such that a 1 represented a nonrecollection of previous
experience with the product and a 6 represented a clear recollec-
tion of experience with the product.
For the perceived usage measure, respondents were asked to
choose all of the products that they had ever tried from a list of 24
different products, including the target product. Thus, the per-
ceived usage memory measure was a dichotomous measure (se-
lected or not selected) and is a conservative assessment of false
beliefs about past product experience, because with this measure
respondents also had the option to select none of the products. The
list was constructed to include six different products for each of
four product categories; the list included the target product variant
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our reported studies, increasing our confidence that any observed
differences are attributable to commitment and not product famil-
iarity.
To test our hypotheses, we regressed each of our false memory
measures on review valence (0 ⫽ negative, 1 ⫽ positive), timing
(0 ⫽ immediate, 1 ⫽ delay), brand commitment (M ⫽ 4.47, SD ⫽
1.31; ␣ ⫽ .86), and their interactions. We also conducted a
spotlight analysis at ⫾1 SD the mean commitment level to further
examine our results (see Table 2).
Product R/K/G measure. The regression analysis with the
product R/K/G measure for the target variant (The Natural) as the
dependent measure, F(7, 214) ⫽ 6.17, p ⬍ .01, R2 ⫽ .17, revealed
a significant effect of timing (b ⫽ 2.13, SE ⫽ 1.01), F(1, 214) ⫽

(e.g., Pizza Hut “The Natural”) along with five filler pizza prod- 2.10, p ⫽ .04, ␩p2 ⫽ .02), such that respondents reported more false
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ucts. One of these filler products was a different fictitious variant memories after a delay versus immediately after reading the prod-
of the target brand (e.g., Pizza Hit “Cinque Carne”), which was uct reviews, a finding consistent with past research on false prod-
included to ensure that any observed false memory was specific to uct experience memory (e.g., Rajagopal & Montgomery, 2011).
the target variant alone, not the overall brand. This was done to More important, the analysis also showed a significant three-way
rule out the possibility that high commitment consumers would interaction between review valence, timing, and commitment (b ⫽
select any variant offered by their preferred brand, suggesting that 0.69, SE ⫽ 0.30), F(1, 214) ⫽ 2.29, p ⫽ .02, ␩p2 ⫽ .02). In line
selection of the target product was not because of reconstruction of with our expectations, the spotlight analysis showed that high
memories, but because of either a desire to affirm commitment or commitment respondents reported more recollections of previous
simple inferences made by high commitment consumers (e.g., “I experience with the target product on exposure to positive versus
must have tried this because I try everything from this brand”). If negative reviews, when there was a delay between reading the
our effects are limited only to the target variant, then these alter- reviews and responding to the target measures (b ⫽ 1.44, SE ⫽
nate explanations can be eliminated. A pretest with 27 MTurk 0.40), t(214) ⫽ 3.58, p ⬍ .01, d ⫽ .49, replicating the findings
respondents revealed no differences in recall for the target (The from Study 1. However, immediately after reading the reviews,
Natural) and filler (Cinque Carne) names, F ⬍ 1. high commitment respondents did not exhibit differences by re-
The product experience belief measure was a set of four false view valence, t ⬍ 1. Further, low commitment respondents did not
statements (e.g., “I have purchased this product”) for the target differ in their recollections of past experience by review valence
product, from which respondents were asked to select all that immediately after reading reviews, or after a delay, t ⬍ 1. No other
applied. Because Study 2 was focused on ruling out demand
effects as a potential alternate account, we also included two true
statements (e.g., “I do not know this product”) for the target Table 2
product, for a total of six statements. More specifically, if our Additional False Memory Measure Means by Condition in
observed effects hold for the belief statements measure when Studies 2 and 3
respondents are afforded an opportunity to explicitly indicate that
Sum of false Sum of true Product Memory
they do not know the target product, then demand effects are a less Study and conditions beliefs beliefs R/K/G confidence
likely explanation. Thus, this measure attempted to capture lack of
knowledge about the brand, in addition to beliefs about having Study 2
Immediate evaluations
previously encountered the brand. HC, positive .26 .91 1.42 1.57
Finally, to further ascertain whether the false memories of past HC, negative .27 .85 1.45 1.51
experience were isolated to the target variant alone, we asked LC, positive .47 .84 1.56 1.48
respondents to complete measures of product R/K/G, memory LC, negative .12 .99 1.16 1.28
Delay evaluations
confidence, and belief statements for the same filler variant (e.g., HC, positive 1.47 .50 3.23 3.73
Dominos Cinque Carne) as in the perceived usage measure (see HC, negative .59 .62 1.79 1.82
Table 1 for additional details on the dependent measures). LC, positive .81 .61 2.38 2.64
LC, negative .84 .49 2.32 2.29
Study 3
Results Real brand
HC, before 1.25 .54 — —
Manipulation checks. There were no differences in self- HC, after .68 .75 — —
reported involvement (␣ ⫽ .89) or mean time spent viewing the LC, before .57 .68 — —
reviews across conditions, Fs(1, 214) ⬍ 1.86, ps ⬎ .17. There was LC, after .75 .81 — —
Fictitious brand
a trend toward greater frequency of pizza consumption (i.e., prod- HC, before .37 .90 — —
uct familiarity) with higher brand commitment, although the effect HC, after .84 .70 — —
was not significant (b ⫽ 0.17, SE ⫽ 0.09), F(1, 219) ⫽ 3.43, p ⫽ LC, before .79 .53 — —
.07, ␩p2 ⫽ .02. More important, product familiarity was not a LC, after .52 .93 — —
significant covariate when included in any of the analyses, Fs(1, Note. R/K/G ⫽ Remember/Know/Guess. High commitment respondents
160) ⬍ 2.37, ps ⬎ .13, nor did it change the pattern of results in denoted as ‘HC’; low commitment respondents denoted as ‘LC’.
 166 MONTGOMERY AND RAJAGOPAL
main or interactive effects were significant, Fs(1, 214) ⬍ 3.20,
ps ⬎ .075. There were no significant effects for the filler variant,
Fs(1, 214) ⬍ 1.61, ps ⬎ .21.
Memory confidence. A similar analysis with memory confi-
dence as the dependent measure, F(7, 214) ⫽ 6.37, p ⬍ .01, R2 ⫽
.17, revealed that the interaction between timing, review valence
and commitment exhibited the same pattern as the R/K/G measure,
although the effect did not reach conventional levels of signifi-
cance, (b ⫽ .65, SE ⫽ 0.36), F(1, 214) ⫽ 1.82, p ⫽ .07, ␩p2 ⫽ .01.
The spotlight analysis showed that after a delay, high commitment
respondents reported greater memory confidence when they were
exposed to positive versus negative reviews (b ⫽ 1.91, SE ⫽ 0.48),
t(214) ⫽ 3.99, p ⬍ .01, d ⫽ .55, replicating the R/K/G findings.
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However, high commitment respondents in the immediate condi-
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tion did not differ by valence, t ⬍ 1. In addition, there were no
differences by valence for low commitment respondents in either
the immediate or delay conditions, t ⬍ 1. No other main or
interactive effects were significant, Fs(1, 214) ⬍ 2.42, ps ⬎ .12,
and there were no significant effects for the filler variant, Fs(1,
214) ⬍ 1.91, ps ⬎ .17.
Perceived usage. The results of a logistic regression with
perceived usage as the dependent measure, ␹2(7, N ⫽ 222) ⫽
18.83, p ⫽ .01, R2 ⫽ .10, revealed an interaction between review
valence, timing, and commitment that mirrored the pattern of
results observed with the previous false memory measures, al-
though the effect did not reach conventional levels of significance
(b ⫽ 1.12, SE ⫽ 0.68), z ⫽ 1.66, p ⫽ .10, ␩p2 ⫽ .11. The spotlight
analysis revealed that after a delay, high commitment consumers
who read the positive versus negative reviews were more likely to
select the target product from the list of different products as one
that they had previously tried (b ⫽ 1.81, SE ⫽ 0.75), z ⫽ 2.40, p ⫽
.02, ␩p2 ⫽ .16. There were no differences in perceived usage in the
immediate condition for high commitment respondents, z ⬍ 1.
Further, there were no differences by valence for low commitment
respondents in either the immediate (b ⫽ 1.18, SE ⫽ 1.17), z ⫽
1.01, p ⫽ .31, ␩p2 ⫽ .07, or delay conditions, z ⬍ 1 (see Figure 2).
No other main or interactive effects were significant, zs ⬍ 1.32,
ps ⬎ .19. More important, there were no significant effects for the
filler variant, zs ⬍ 1.
Product belief statements. The results of the analysis with
the sum of the four false product belief statements as the dependent
measure, F(7, 214) ⫽ 6.19, p ⬍ .01, R2 ⫽ .17, revealed the
expected interaction between review valence, timing, and commit-
ment (b ⫽ 0.48, SE ⫽ 0.19), F(1, 214) ⫽ 6.50, p ⫽ .01, ␩p2 ⫽ .03.
The spotlight analysis confirmed our expectation that after a
delay, high commitment respondents were more likely to report
greater false beliefs about past product experience if they read
the positive versus the negative reviews (b ⫽ 0.88, SE ⫽ 0.25),
t(214) ⫽ 3.46, p ⬍ .01, d ⫽ .47, but there were no differences
immediately after reading reviews, t ⬍ 1. Low commitment
respondents did not differ by valence in the immediate (b ⫽
0.35, SE ⫽ 0.25), t(214) ⫽ 1.40, p ⫽ .16, d ⫽ .19, or delay
conditions, t ⬍ 1. The interaction between review valence and
timing was also significant (b ⫽ ⫺1.90, SE ⫽ 0.88), F(1,
214) ⫽ 4.70, p ⫽ .03, ␩p2 ⫽ .02. No other main or interactive
effects for the target variant were significant, Fs(1, 214) ⬍
3.53, ps ⬎ .06.
For the two true product belief statements, F(7, 214) ⫽ 4.91,
p ⬍ .01, R2 ⫽ .14, there was a significant main effect of timing
(b ⫽ ⫺0.83, SE ⫽ 0.31), F(1, 214) ⫽ 7.11, p ⬍ .01, ␩p2 ⫽ .03, such
that the mean number of true statements selected was lower after
a delay. The analysis also showed a three-way interaction
(b ⫽ ⫺0.17, SE ⫽ 0.09), F(1, 214) ⫽ 3.60, p ⫽ .06, ␩p2 ⫽ .02.
Notably, this dependent measure revealed a different pattern of
results than the false statements, showing that after a delay, high
commitment consumers who read the positive product reviews
were less likely to correctly attribute their past experience with the
product to reading the reviews, (b ⫽ ⫺0.41, SE ⫽ 0.13),
t(214) ⫽ ⫺3.16, p ⬍ .01, d ⫽ .43, consistent with research that has
shown source misattribution giving rise to false memory effects
(Johnson et al., 1993; Johnson & Raye, 1981). The interaction
between review valence and timing was also significant (b ⫽ 0.83,
SE ⫽ 0.43), F(1, 214) ⫽ 7.11, p ⫽ .05, ␩p2 ⫽ .02. No other main
or interactive effects for the target variant were significant, Fs(1,
214) ⬍ 2.59, ps ⬎ .11. No significant effects emerged for either
the false or true set of statements for the filler variant, Fs(1, 214) ⬍
2.11, ps ⬎ .15.
Discussion
The results of Study 2 provide additional evidence for the role
of brand commitment on the creation of false experience memories
on exposure to online reviews, and extend the results of Study 1 in
two important ways. First, our effects were replicated across
multiple measures of false memory from past research, increasing
our confidence in the robustness of our findings. This is particu-
larly important because different measures of false memory may
not be highly correlated (Bernstein, Desjarlais, Scoboria, &
Soucie, 2017). Second, the results help rule out demand effects as
an alternate explanation for our findings. We included measures of
a second variant of the preferred brand for which respondents did
not read reviews, allowing us to determine whether the false
memory effects observed were attributable to exposure to reviews
for the product, or were simply the result of inferences that
respondents made about their preferred brand. Our findings
showed that the reported false memories were isolated to the
variant about which respondents read reviews, and did not extend
to the brand in general, increasing our confidence that respondents
are exhibiting false memories of past experience with the target
product, not inferences that reflect past experience with the brand
or a desire to affirm their brand commitment.
Further supporting this assertion, we replicate our findings from
Study 1 only after a delay between exposure to product reviews
and retrieval of past brand experiences, not when memory is
assessed immediately after reading the reviews. This finding is
consistent with past work that has shown that false memories are
more pronounced over time, as memory for the information source
dissipates and respondents erroneously attribute information to
autobiographical experience (Ackil & Zaragoza, 1995; Lindsay &
Johnson, 2000; Zaragoza & Mitchell, 1996). Finally, our effects
held even when the delay between exposure to the brand and
assessment of memory was extended to 7 days, as compared with
2 days in Study 1.
Study 3
Study 3 builds on Studies 1 and 2 in three ways. One, we use
mixed reviews wherein each respondent saw a mix of both positive
 EFFECT OF BRAND COMMITMENT ON FALSE MEMORIES 167

Immediate Condition

Posive reviews Negave reviews

0.50

0.45

0.40
Target Usage Probability

0.35

0.30

0.25
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0.20

0.15

0.10 0.11 0.11

0.07
0.05 0.04
0.00
Low commitment (-1SD) High commitment (+1SD)

Delay Condition

Posive reviews Negave reviews

0.60

0.50
Target Usage Probability

0.43
0.40

0.30

0.22
0.20
0.16

0.10 0.11

0.00
Low commitment (-1SD) High commitment (+1SD)

Figure 2. The effect of brand commitment, review valence, and recall timing on perceived usage of a product
in Study 2. Error bars denote SE.

and negative reviews about the brand, to assess the relative influ-
ence of positive and negative reviews by commitment level, and to
mirror the actual marketplace wherein consumers are often ex-
posed to both types of reviews online. However, we maintain a
greater proportion of positive than negative reviews so that the
overall reviews skew positive. We anticipate that this will result in
effects comparable to reading only positive reviews, but this serves
as a more conservative test of our hypotheses and increases the
external validity of our findings.
Two, we further assess our account that brand commitment
motivates differences in the subjective plausibility of the review
information, and subsequent false memories of past product expe-
rience. To this end, respondents were exposed to a series of
reviews about a fictitious athletic shoe offered either by their
preferred brand (e.g., Nike) or a fictitious brand (Modal). Further,
we varied when respondents were informed about the brand
name— before or after reading the product reviews. Our expecta-
tion was that when respondents read reviews for a fictitious brand
 168 MONTGOMERY AND RAJAGOPAL
(Modal), they would exhibit a low level of false memory across all
experimental conditions because the perceived plausibility of hav-
ing a prior experience with the fictitious brand would be very low
(Rajagopal & Montgomery, 2011). Thus, the fictitious brand con-
dition was included to document that commitment would only
affect the creation of false memories about known, preferred
brands, and not just any brand.
We also expected that when high commitment respondents read
the set of reviews, but did not know that the reviews pertained to
an offering from their preferred brand, they would have less
motivation to engage in biased processing of the review informa-
tion, decreasing reported memories of past product experience. On
the other hand, when respondents read reviews knowing that they
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pertained to their preferred brand, they would be motivated to
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process the information in a positively biased manner, resulting in
higher incidences of false memory. Because low commitment
consumers do not exhibit the same motivated information process-
ing that high consumers do, we anticipated no significant differ-
ences in false memory based on when they were informed that the
reviews pertained to their preferred brand.
Three, we assess memory for the information contained in the
product reviews immediately after encoding. This measure was
included to investigate the extent to which differential attention to
information accounts for the observed effects rather than differ-
ences in subjective plausibility caused by high commitment con-
sumers’ motivated processing of the reviews. Finally, in Study 3
and subsequent studies, we primarily utilize perceived usage and
false product belief statements as our main dependent measures,
because these are closest to how marketers assess product experi-
ence (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987; Law, Hawkins, & Craik, 1998;
Park, Mothersbaugh, & Feick, 1994).
Method
Study 3 was a (commitment toward preferred brand: measured,
continuous) ⫻ 2 (reviewed brand: preferred vs. fictitious) ⫻ 2
(timing of brand name: before vs. after reading reviews) between-
subjects design. We used a procedure similar to Study 1. There
were 241 respondents who completed the first part of the study
which consisted of reading five reviews (three positive and two
negative) for a fictitious pair of athletic shoes (“Altra”; see sup-
plementary materials). However, half of the respondents (“imme-
diate brand information” condition) were told prior to reading the
reviews that Altra was a line of shoes made by either their
preferred brand (e.g., Nike Altra—preferred brand condition) or a
fictitious brand (e.g., Modal Altra—fictitious brand condition).
The other half of respondents (“delay brand information” condi-
tion) was not given any information about the brand when they
read the product reviews; they were told before completing the
dependent measures in the second part of the study that the reviews
that they read previously were for a product by their preferred or
fictitious brand, depending on their brand condition. Thus, all
respondents had received the same information (brand and re-
views) by the time they completed the target measures. In total,
211 respondents completed both parts of the study (Mage ⫽ 34.1
years, SDage ⫽ 11.3 years, 50.7% male). An analysis revealed no
differences in the dropout rate by experimental condition (ps ⬎
.10).
In a separate study with 49 respondents, we assessed the plau-
sibility of having a negative experience with a preferred brand of
athletic shoes using a single item scale (“How likely are you to
have negative experiences with “preferred brand?”). Like in Study
1, this measure was included to check for the expected negative
relationship between commitment and the plausibility of a nega-
tive experience. A regression analysis revealed a significant neg-
ative effect of brand commitment on the likelihood of having a
negative experience (b ⫽ ⫺0.27, SE ⫽ 0.11), F(1, 47) ⫽ 6.40, p ⫽
.02, ␩p2 ⫽ .12, supporting our contention that commitment reduces
the plausibility of a negative brand experience.
Our target dependent measures were the perceived usage and
false product belief statements used in Study 2. For the perceived
usage measure, respondents were asked to choose all of the prod-
ucts that they had ever tried from a list of 24 different products,
including the target product. The list was constructed to include six
different products for each of four product categories (athletic
shoes, pizza, sandwich shops, and microwave popcorn). Included
in the list of shoe brands was the target product variant (e.g., Nike
“Altra”). Like in Study 2, we also included a fictitious filler variant
for which respondents did not read reviews (e.g., Nike “Racer”),
which was included to ensure that any observed false beliefs were
specific to the target product variant alone, not the overall brand.
A pretest with 26 MTurk respondents revealed no differences in
recall for the target (Altra) and filler (Racer) product names, F(1,
25) ⫽ 2.08, p ⫽ .16, ␩p2 ⫽ .08.
In addition, respondents were given a recognition memory test
for the information contained in the reviews in the first part of the
study. That is, they were given a list of 16 statements about Altra
athletic shoes (no brand names were mentioned), and they were
asked to select all of the statements that they remembered reading
in the reviews (review recognition measure). Of the 16 statements,
10 had been included in the reviews that they previously read. We
selected two statements from each of the five reviews to include in
the list so that we could examine whether recall for the positive
versus negative review information varied by commitment. The
review recognition measure was included to rule out differences in
attention or encoding of information by high versus low commit-
ment respondents as an explanation for our results.
Results
Manipulation checks. There were no significant differences
in the amount of time that respondents spent reading the reviews or
self-reported involvement (␣ ⫽ .90) across conditions, Fs(1,
203) ⬍ 2.75, ps ⱖ .10.
To test our hypotheses, we regressed all of our dependent
measures on timing of the brand information (0 ⫽ before reading
reviews, 1 ⫽ after reading reviews), brand name (0 ⫽ fictitious
brand, 1 ⫽ preferred brand), brand commitment (M ⫽ 4.74, SD ⫽
1.18; ␣ ⫽ .72), and their interactions. We also conducted a
spotlight analysis at ⫾1 SD the mean commitment level to further
examine our results (see Table 2).
Perceived usage. A logistic regression with perceived usage
as the dependent variable, ␹2(7, N ⫽ 211) ⫽ 21.27, p ⬍ .01, R2 ⫽
.09 revealed a significant main effect of brand name (b ⫽ ⫺6.11,
SE ⫽ 2.83), z ⫽ ⫺2.16, p ⫽ .03, ␩p2 ⫽ .15, with greater usage
reported for the real brand than the fictitious brand. This was
qualified by a significant interaction between brand name and
 EFFECT OF BRAND COMMITMENT ON FALSE MEMORIES
information timing (b ⫽ 8.34, SE ⫽ 3.71), z ⫽ 2.25, p ⫽ .03, ␩p2 ⫽
.15, and between brand name and commitment (b ⫽ 1.38, SE ⫽
0.58), z ⫽ 2.39, p ⫽ .02, ␩p2 ⫽ .16. As predicted, we also found a
significant three-way interaction between brand information tim-
ing, brand name, and commitment (b ⫽ ⫺1.95, SE ⫽ 0.76),
z ⫽ ⫺2.56, p ⫽ .01, ␩p2 ⫽ .18. In line with our expectations, the
spotlight analysis showed that high commitment respondents were
more likely to select the target product as one that they had
previously tried, when they were informed of the real brand name
prior to reading the reviews versus after reading the reviews
(b ⫽ ⫺1.91, SE ⫽ 0.73), z ⫽ ⫺2.61, p ⫽ .01, ␩p2 ⫽ .18. This
difference was not significant for the fictitious brand conditions
(b ⫽ 1.25, SE ⫽ 0.93), z ⫽ 1.35, p ⫽ .18, ␩p2 ⫽ .09. In contrast,
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low commitment respondents did not exhibit any effect of timing
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of the brand information on their selection of the target product
regardless of whether they were told the target was made by their
real, preferred brand or by a fictitious brand, zs ⬍ 1 (see Figure 3).
No other main or interactive effects were significant, zs ⬍ 1.52,
ps ⬎ .13. More important, there were no significant effects for the
filler variant (Racer) on product usage, zs ⬍ 1.03, ps ⬎ .30,
supporting our contention that the effect is not a general brand
effect, but specific to the target variant.
Product belief statements. A regression analysis with the
sum of the four false product belief statements as the dependent
variable, F(7, 203) ⫽ 2.36, p ⫽ .024, R2 ⫽ .08, revealed the
expected three-way interaction between brand information timing,
brand name, and commitment (b ⫽ ⫺0.63, SE ⫽ 0.28), F(1,
203) ⫽ 5.29, p ⫽ .02, ␩p2 ⫽ .02. Consistent with the perceived
usage measure, the spotlight analysis showed that high commit-
ment respondents were more likely to report false beliefs about
past experience if they were told before reading the reviews that
the reviews pertained to their preferred brand (b ⫽ ⫺0.57, SE ⫽
0.27), t(203) ⫽ ⫺2.12, p ⫽ .04, d ⫽ .30. They did not exhibit
differences by brand timing for the fictitious brand name (b ⫽
0.46, SE ⫽ 0.34), t(203) ⫽ 1.35, p ⫽ .18, d ⫽ .19. Further, low
commitment respondents did not differ by information timing in
the number of false memory statements selected for either the
preferred brand or the fictitious brand, ts ⬍ 1. The interaction
between commitment and brand name, (b ⫽ 0.47, SE ⫽ 0.21), F(1,
203) ⫽ 5.00, p ⫽ .03, ␩p2 ⫽ .02, and the interaction between brand
information timing and brand name (b ⫽ 2.71, SE ⫽ 1.37), F(1,
203) ⫽ 3.94, p ⫽ .05, ␩p2 ⫽ .02, were also significant. No other
main or interactive effects were significant, Fs(1, 203) ⬍ 3.16,
ps ⬎ .08.
Review recognition measure. An analysis of the recognition
memory task revealed no significant effects for the average num-
ber of positive statements from the reviews that were correctly
identified, Fs(1, 203) ⬍ 3.09, ps ⬎ .08, the average number of
negative statements identified, Fs ⬍ 1, or the average number of
recognition intrusions, Fs(1, 203) ⬍ 1.21, ps ⬎ .27. The lack
of difference by condition suggests that differences observed in the
target measures may not be attributable to differences in encoding
or retrieval of the information contained in the reviews. Given
these null findings, we posit that rather than differences in the
amount of information about the brand, differences in how this
information is integrated into memory may underlie the differ-
ences in false memories.
169
Discussion
The results of Study 3 provide additional evidence for the
motivational role of brand commitment on the creation of false
product experience memories, with high commitment respondents
reporting greater false memories than low commitment respon-
dents, but only when they were informed before reading the
reviews that the target product was from their preferred brand. This
finding suggests that the false memories of past product experience
emerged when brand misinformation was made available to inte-
grate into brand memories. When informed about the brand name
after reading the reviews, high commitment respondents did not
have the opportunity to integrate the review information into their
memories, leading to fewer false memories. Further, the lack of
difference in recognition of the content of the reviews suggests that
there are no attentional or encoding differences between high and
low commitment respondents. Rather, it appears that integration of
the information into their own experiences may vary systemati-
cally between high and low commitment respondents. Finally, we
did not observe differences in false memory between commitment
conditions when the brand name was fictitious, further supporting
our contention that commitment motivates biased processing of
online reviews, and hence, enhances perceived plausibility, only
for the known, committed brand.
Study 4
In Study 4, we directly test our contention that the differences
between high and low commitment respondents arises because
of differences in their motivations while processing brand rel-
evant information. Specifically, we surmise that high commit-
ment consumers are more susceptible to reconstruction errors
than low commitment consumers because the latter use an
accuracy motivation. Therefore, inducing an accuracy motiva-
tion among high commitment respondents on exposure to mixed
product reviews ought to mitigate the differences in false mem-
ories by brand commitment. That is, the incidence of false
memories for low commitment consumers will not differ
whether they are asked to use an accuracy motivation or not,
because they are presumably already using such a motivation.
In contrast, when high commitment consumers are asked to use
an accuracy motive, they should exhibit fewer false memories
about past product experience after exposure to mixed reviews
as compared to using their default defense motivation, because
it should facilitate more accurate attribution of the recalled
information to the reviews.
Method
Study 4 was a (commitment: measured, continuous) ⫻ 2
(motivation: accuracy vs. control) between-subjects design. All
respondents read the same set of mixed (3 positive and 2
negative) reviews. We used a procedure similar to the previous
three studies. There were 250 respondents who completed the
first part of the study in which they read the same five reviews
(three positive and two negative) for their preferred brand of
athletic shoes (Altra) as in Study 3. Motivation was manipu-
lated using the procedure outlined in Thompson et al. (1994; see
supplementary materials). Half of the respondents (“control”
 170 MONTGOMERY AND RAJAGOPAL

Real Brand Condition

Brand informaon before reviews Brand informaon aer reviews

0.60

0.50
0.48
Target Usage Probability

0.40

0.30
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0.20
0.18

0.12 0. 12
0.10

0.00
Low commitment (-1SD) High commitment (+1SD)

Fictitious Brand Condition

Brand informaon before reviews Brand informaon aer reviews

0.60

0.50
Target Usage Probability

0.40

0.30 0.31 0.30

0.20
0.15
0.10 0.11

0.00
Low commitment (-1SD) High commitment (+1SD)

Figure 3. The effect of brand commitment, reviewed brand, and timing of brand information on perceived
usage of a product in Study 3. Error bars denote SE.

condition) were told before reading the reviews that they would
be reading reviews, providing their overall impressions, and
critiquing the reviews (e.g., “You will have an opportunity to
critique the online reviews and make suggestions for improving
them”). The other half of the respondents (“accuracy motiva-
tion” condition) were informed that they would be reading
reviews, providing their overall impressions, and justifying the
reasons for their impressions (e.g., “After you have read the
online reviews and given your impressions of (Brand) Altra
athletic shoes, you will explain and justify, in writing, the
 EFFECT OF BRAND COMMITMENT ON FALSE MEMORIES
reasons for your particular impression”). After the reviews, all
respondents were asked to provide their overall impressions of
the product (e.g., “In the space below, please write your im-
pressions of (Brand) Altra athletic shoes”). Subsequently, re-
spondents in the control condition were asked to critique the
reviews (e.g., “Now, please critique the online reviews of
[Brand] Altra athletic shoes that you read”), whereas respon-
dents in the accuracy motive condition were asked to justify
their previously reported impressions (e.g., “Now, please ex-
plain and justify the reasons for your impression of [Brand]
Altra athletic shoes.”). One week later, respondents completed
the product belief statements measure (4 false, 2 true) from
Studies 2 and 3. In total, 187 respondents completed both parts
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of the study (Mage ⫽ 36.9 years, SDage ⫽ 12.4 years, 38%
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male). An analysis revealed no differences in the dropout rate
by experimental condition, ps ⬎ .10.
Results
Manipulation checks. There were no differences in the
amount of time that respondents spent reading the reviews or
self-reported involvement (␣ ⫽ .89) across conditions, Fs ⬍ 1.
False belief statements. We regressed the sum of the false
belief statements on brand commitment (M ⫽ 4.74, SD ⫽ 1.18;
␣ ⫽ .78), motivation condition (0 ⫽ control, 1 ⫽ accuracy
motive), and their interaction, F(4, 182) ⫽ 5.08, p ⬍ .01, R2 ⫽ .10.
Brand attitude (␣ ⫽ .93) was included as a covariate to account for
differences in attitudes by commitment (b ⫽ ⫺0.16, SE ⫽ 0.09),
F(1, 182) ⫽ 3.01, p ⫽ .08, ␩p2 ⫽ .02. The analysis showed a
significant effect of commitment, such that a greater number of
false beliefs were selected as commitment increased (b ⫽ 0.22,
SE ⫽ 0.06), F(1, 182) ⫽ 13.34, p ⬍ .01, ␩p2 ⫽ .02. There was also
a significant effect of motivation, such that respondents in
the control condition selected more false belief statements
(b ⫽ ⫺0.27, SE ⫽ 0.13), F(1, 182) ⫽ 4.27, p ⫽ .04, ␩p2 ⫽ .02.
More important, the analysis revealed the expected interaction
between commitment and motivation (b ⫽ ⫺0.21, SE ⫽ 0.10),
F(1, 182) ⫽ 4.07, p ⫽ .05, ␩p2 ⫽ .02. We also conducted a spotlight
analysis at ⫾1 SD the mean commitment level to further examine
Control
1.60
1.40
1.20
Sum of False Beliefs
1.00
0.80
0.60
0.40 0.41
0.20
0.00
Low commitment (-1SD)
Figure 4. The effect of brand commitment and motivation on false product experience beliefs in Study 4. Error
bars denote SE.
171
our results (see Figure 4). High commitment respondents selected
fewer false belief statements when they were given an accuracy
motive instruction than when they were not (i.e., control condition,
b ⫽ ⫺0.55, SE ⫽ 0.19), t(182) ⫽ ⫺2.90, p ⬍ .01, d ⫽ .43.
However, low commitment respondents did not differ in their
reported false belief statements regardless of whether or not they
were given an accuracy motive instruction, t ⬍ 1. There were no
significant main or interactive effects for the two true statements,
zs ⬍ 1.70, ps ⬎ .09.
Discussion
The results of Study 4 provide support for the role of motivation
as the underlying process for the differences between high and low
commitment consumers in memory reconstruction. High commit-
ment consumers are not naturally motivated to process information
about their brand from an accuracy standpoint, and instead are
more likely to be defensive in their processing, resulting in higher
subjective plausibility and a greater tendency to incorporate pos-
itive misinformation into their own brand memories. On the other
hand, when the reviews are negative, the same high commitment
consumers are confronted with evidence that conflicts with their
prior beliefs, and hence, forced to confront this evidence, thus
resulting in lower perceived plausibility and fewer false memories
about negative experiences.
Study 5
While Studies 1– 4 provide support for our hypotheses pertain-
ing to false memories of past product experience, one limitation of
these studies is that they do not document any downstream mar-
keting consequences. Therefore, in Study 5, we include marketing
outcomes (WOM intentions) for the brand on exposure to reviews.
WOM has been defined as the willingness to tell others about a
consumption experience (Chen & Berger, 2016), and has been
shown to exert significant effects on brand perceptions, prefer-
ences and choice (Berger, 2014), thereby rendering it an important
outcome for marketers. We also include control conditions
wherein respondents were not exposed to any product reviews in
Accuracy movaon
1.24
0.69
High commitment (+1SD)
 172 MONTGOMERY AND RAJAGOPAL
order to rule out the possibility that our observed effects could be
the result of memory distortion that occurs naturally without any
exposure to product reviews, that is, to show that our effects are
over and above any baseline false memories that exist among
consumers. The inclusion of a control condition also facilitates a
comparison between the effect of reading product reviews (vs. not)
for consumers who vary in their commitment to a brand, echoing
real consumer decision making situations. Our expectation was
that high commitment respondents would exhibit greater false
memories about past experience with the brand after exposure to
the reviews compared to respondents in the control condition who
did not read reviews; we did not expect such differences for low
commitment respondents. Accordingly, high commitment respon-
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dents should exhibit greater intention to spread WOM about a
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brand after exposure to the online product reviews (vs. no re-
views), but low commitment respondents should not differ in their
WOM intentions by review exposure.
Method
Study 5 was a (commitment: measured, continuous) ⫻ 2 (re-
views: yes vs. no/control) between-subjects design. Half of the
respondents (control condition) did not read reviews; they simply
completed the dependent measures. The other half of the respon-
dents (review condition) read the same set of mixed (3 positive and
2 negative) reviews for a preferred brand of athletic shoes as in
Study 4. However, we used a different fictitious product name in
the reviews (i.e., Hyperdrive) to further generalize our findings. In
total, 164 respondents completed all parts of the study (Mage ⫽
34.2 years, SDage ⫽ 10.7 years, 60.2% male). An analysis revealed
no differences in the dropout rate by brand commitment in the
review condition, p ⬎ .10.
Two days after reading the reviews, respondents completed our
dependent measures, which were perceived usage and the same
open-ended product experience recall measure as in Study 1. We
included the recall measure in Study 5 to further ascertain the
downstream consequences of false memory on WOM. For
the perceived usage measure, we included a total of 24 products (6
products from each of 4 categories). Like in Study 1, two coders
blind to the hypotheses coded each respondent’s recall for episodic
and semantic details, as well as statements of doubt about past
product experience. Interrater reliability was .92, and disagree-
ments were resolved via discussion. Finally, we included a mea-
sure of WOM intentions toward the brand variant (␣ ⫽ .91; e.g.,
Chen & Berger, 2016) to assess the marketing implications of false
memory about past product experience (see Table 1).
Results
Manipulation checks. There were no differences by commit-
ment in time spent reading the reviews (review condition only),
F ⬍ 1. However, there was a positive and significant effect of
commitment on self-reported involvement (␣ ⫽ .89) while reading
the reviews, (b ⫽ 0.13, SE ⫽ 0.06), F(1, 81) ⫽ 5.20, p ⫽ .03, ␩p2 ⫽
.06. More important, involvement was not a significant covariate
when included in any of the analyses, ps ⬎ .74, nor did it change
the pattern of results. Thus, we report all analyses without the
inclusion of this covariate.
False recall. To examine false recall of past product experi-
ence, we regressed the number of episodic details, the number of
semantic details, and the number of statements expressing doubt,
separately, on commitment (M ⫽ 4.86, SD ⫽ 1.25; ␣ ⫽ .80),
reviews, and the interaction between commitment and reviews,
episodic details model: F(3, 160) ⫽ 5.94, p ⬍ .01, R2 ⫽ .10,
semantic details model: F(3, 160) ⫽ 1.91, p ⫽ .13, R2 ⫽ .03, doubt
model: F(3, 160) ⫽ 2.52, p ⫽ .06, R2 ⫽ .05. The results revealed
a significant interaction between review valence and commitment
on episodic details (b ⫽ 0.27, SE ⫽ 0.11), F(1, 160) ⫽ 5.70, p ⫽
.02, ␩p2 ⫽ .03. As predicted, a spotlight analysis at ⫾1 SD showed
that high commitment respondents reported more episodic recall
details when they read the reviews versus not (b ⫽ 0.76, SE ⫽
0.20), t(160) ⫽ 3.84, p ⬍ .01, d ⫽ .61. However, there were no
differences in episodic details for low commitment respondents
regardless of whether or not they read reviews, t ⬍ 1. Further, the
main effect of commitment on episodic details was significant
(b ⫽ 0.12, SE ⫽ 0.06), F(1, 160) ⫽ 4.42, p ⫽ .04, ␩p2 ⫽ .03, as
well as the main effect of reviews (b ⫽ 0.42, SE ⫽ 0.14), F(1,
160) ⫽ 9.11, p ⬍ .01, ␩p2 ⫽ .05 (see Figure 5).
An analysis of the semantic details showed only a main effect
of reviews, (b ⫽ 0.28, SE ⫽ 0.13), F(1, 160) ⫽ 4.65, p ⫽ .03,
␩p2 ⫽ .03, such that respondents provided more semantic details
on exposure to the reviews than when they did not read reviews.
No other effects were significant, Fs(1, 160) ⬍ 1.14, ps ⬎ .29.
An analysis of the doubt statements showed only a main effect
of reviews (b ⫽ 0.25, SE ⫽ 0.10), F(1, 160) ⫽ 5.86, p ⫽ .02,
␩p2 ⫽ .04, such that respondents expressed more doubts in their
past experience with the product on exposure to the reviews
than when they did not read reviews. No other effects were
significant, Fs ⬍ 1.
Perceived usage. The results of a logistic regression with
perceived usage as the dependent measure, ␹2(4, N ⫽ 164) ⫽
15.08, p ⬍ .01, R2 ⫽ .13, revealed an interaction between reviews
and commitment which mirrored the pattern of results observed
with the false recall measure, although the effect did not reach
conventional levels of significance (b ⫽ 10.94, SE ⫽ 0.53), z ⫽
1.79, p ⫽ .07, ␩p2 ⫽ .14. The spotlight analysis revealed that high
commitment respondents who read the reviews (vs. control respon-
dents) were more likely to select the target product from the list of
different products as one that they had previously tried (b ⫽ 1.96,
SE ⫽ 0.71), z ⫽ 2.75, p ⬍ .01, ␩p2 ⫽ .21. There were no differences
in perceived usage for low commitment respondents in either the
reviews or control conditions, zs ⬍ 1. The main effect of brand
commitment was also significant (b ⫽ 0.55, SE ⫽ 0.26), z ⫽ 2.10,
p ⫽ .04, ␩p2 ⫽ .16, but the main effect of reviews was not (b ⫽
0.79, SE ⫽ 0.62), z ⫽ 1.28, p ⫽ .20, ␩p2 ⫽ .10.
WOM intentions. An analysis of WOM intentions, F(3,
160) ⫽ 10.45, p ⬍ .01, R2 ⫽ .16, revealed a significant interaction
between brand commitment and reviews (b ⫽ 0.31, SE ⫽ 0.15),
F(1, 160) ⫽ 4.61, p ⫽ .03, ␩p2 ⫽ .03. Consistent with episodic
details and perceived usage, the spotlight analysis showed that
high commitment respondents expressed greater intent to spread
WOM when they read the reviews versus not (b ⫽ 0.73, SE ⫽
0.25), t(160) ⫽ 2.86, p ⬍ .01, d ⫽ .45. However, there were no
differences in WOM intentions for low commitment respondents
regardless of whether or not they read reviews, t ⬍ 1 (see Figure
6). Further, the main effect of commitment on WOM intentions
was significant (b ⫽ 0.36, SE ⫽ 0.07), F(1, 160) ⫽ 25.01, p ⬍ .01,
␩p2 ⫽ .14. The main effect of reviews was not significant, but
 EFFECT OF BRAND COMMITMENT ON FALSE MEMORIES 173

Episodic Details

Reviews Control

1.20

1.00 0.98

0.80
Episodic Details

0.60

0.40
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0.35
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

0.26
0.20 0.22

0.00
Low commitment (-1SD) High commitment (+1SD)

WOM Intentions

Reviews Control

5.00

4.80

4.60 4.62

4.40
WOM Intenons

4.20

4.00
3.89
3.80

3.60
3.38
3.40
3.33
3.20

3.00
Low commitment (-1SD) High commitment (+1SD)

Figure 5. The effect of brand commitment and product reviews on false product experience episodic details
and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions in Study 5. Error bars denote SE.

exhibited a positive trend (b ⫽ 0.34, SE ⫽ 0.18), F(1, 160) ⫽ 3.54,
p ⫽ .06, ␩p2 ⫽ .02.
Mediation analysis. Our contention is that respondents’
brand commitment moderates the effect of reviews on false
memories of previous experience with the reviewed product,
which in turn affects consumers’ intentions to spread WOM.
Accordingly, we examined the mediating role of false memory,
operationalized as episodic details pertaining to respondents’
own experience with the reviewed product. Using Preacher and
Hayes’s (2008) macro, with 5,000 bootstrap samples (Model 7),
the mediator was false episodic details about past product
experience (i.e., false memory), the independent variable was
the online review condition (0 ⫽ control/no reviews, 1 ⫽
reviews), the moderator was brand commitment (continuous),
and the dependent variable was WOM intentions. The index of
moderated mediation was positive and significant (b ⫽ 0.08),
with the 95% confidence interval excluding zero (0.01 to 0.20;
see Figure 6). Using perceived usage as the mediator yielded
the same pattern of results, b ⫽ 0.92, t(161) ⫽ 3.02, p ⬍ .01;
c’ ⫽ 0.12, t ⬍ 1. Consistent with our expectations, false
memories of past product experience fully mediate the effect of
online reviews and brand commitment on WOM intentions.
Discussion
The results of Study 5 showcase the downstream consequences
that arise from false memories of past product experience on
exposure to positive product reviews (as compared with not read-
ing reviews). High commitment consumers are not only more
likely to falsely remember experiences with brand, but these false
memories also translate into greater intentions to spread WOM.
Low commitment respondents, on the other hand, demonstrated
equivalently low WOM intentions regardless of their product
review exposure.
 174 MONTGOMERY AND RAJAGOPAL
Episodic details
Online reviews X
Brand
commitment
Brand
commitment
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Online reviews
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Figure 6. The number of false episodic details mediates the effect of online reviews and brand commitment
on word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions in Study 5. Index of moderated mediation: b ⫽ 0.08, SE ⫽ 0.05; 95%
confidence interval ⫽ [0.01, 0.20].
General Discussion
Theoretical Contributions
Our research examines the moderating effect of brand commit-
ment on the generation of false memories of past brand experience
after exposure to online product reviews. In doing so, we answer
calls for greater research in the realm of memory reconstruction
(Cowley & Caldwell, 2001; LaTour et al., 2014; Watson, Bunting,
Poole, & Conway, 2005). Across five studies we find that, high
commitment to a brand may increase the likelihood of memory
reconstruction errors. Specifically, highly committed consumers
are more likely to erroneously reconstruct previous brand experi-
ences after reading positive versus negative online reviews per-
taining to their preferred brand. We find support for this positivity
bias using multiple measures of false product experience memories
including episodic recall, product usage, RKG, memory confi-
dence, and belief statements that assess various types of past
experience. However, this positivity bias does not appear to hold
for low commitment consumers, who are equally likely to report
false memories of product experience on exposure to positive
versus negative information.
Further, these differences in memory errors are attributable to
differences in information processing motivations on exposure to
online reviews. Our contention is that the biased information
processing facilitated by brand commitment affects the perceived
plausibility of the information, and, thereby its effect on memory
reconstruction; high commitment consumers who are motivated to
maintain their attitudinal position judge positive (negative) infor-
mation as more (less) plausible resulting in more (less) false
memory. Our findings also show that the different motivations for
low commitment compared to high commitment consumers on
exposure to brand information accounts for these effects. Low
commitment consumers are more accuracy motived than high
commitment consumers, and encouraging high commitment con-
sumers to approach product reviews with an accuracy motivation
attenuates the observed effects (Study 4).
We demonstrate moderators of the effect of brand commitment
on false memories, offering additional insight into the conditions
WOM intentions
under which false memories arise. Our findings show that our
effects are enhanced after a delay between information exposure
and assessments of memory, when memory for the information
source is expected to decline (Study 2). The finding that our effects
are not observed immediately after exposure to online reviews
offers support for our contention that consumers are in fact exhib-
iting false memories of past experience, rather than showing evi-
dence of demand effects. Further, we show additional support for
the assertion that the effect of brand commitment on false mem-
ories is a function of motivation and plausibility; we only observe
the effects when the reviews are attributed to the preferred brand
on exposure to the reviews, not otherwise (i.e., when reviews are
attributed to the preferred brand at recall, when reviews are attrib-
uted to a fictitious brand at encoding or recall). Thus, changing the
information available to high commitment respondents during
encoding results in differences in false memory despite the fact
that this information is the same across different timings of the
brand information (Study 3). We find that memory for the actual
online review information is no different immediately after expo-
sure to reviews, increasing our confidence that the effects are not
attributed to differential involvement or attention to reviews
(Study 2).
Combined, these findings support the conclusion that motivated
integration of misinformation into prior memory is a logical ex-
planation for the observed effects. That is, the manner in which
consumers process brand information and relate it their own per-
sonal experiences (i.e., integrating it into their episodic brand
memories) results in differences in false memory creation. This
finding is consistent with past work (Humphreys & Chalmers,
2016; Humphreys et al., 2010; Tehan, Humphreys, Tolan, &
Pitcher, 2004) that has proposed that aspects of the self may be
involved in memory retrieval for false memories and that different
goals of information processing and learning may impact how
memories are formed and retrieved. Similar to past work, our
findings seem to suggest that the process by which brand commit-
ment affects false memories occurs not only at encoding, but also
during storage and retrieval of the review information. For exam-
ple, in Study 3 information about the brand produced an effect on
 EFFECT OF BRAND COMMITMENT ON FALSE MEMORIES
high commitment consumers when it was presented at study but
not when it was presented at retrieval. Therefore, linking the
reviews to personal experiences may account for why aspects of
the reviews are recalled when consumers attempt to retrieve per-
sonal memories (Humphreys et al., 2010). Further, in Study 3 the
recognition memory test for the information contained in the
reviews did not show any memory distortions, suggesting that false
memories for past product experience occurred later when partic-
ipants were asked questions about their personal experience, con-
sistent with past work that has shown that veridical memories and
misinformation are combined at retrieval (Humphreys et al., 2010;
Tehan et al., 2004).
Finally, we show that memory distortions can have a significant
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impact on consumers’ WOM intentions (Study 5). This finding is
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notable in that it accounts for why and when consumers may
spread WOM. In addition, it further underscores the importance of
studying how and under what conditions memory errors arise for
marketers. We contribute to the literatures in memory reconstruc-
tion, brand commitment, and WOM in several ways. Our work
adds to the emerging research on reconstructed memory in mar-
keting (Braun, Ellis, & Loftus, 2002; Braun-LaTour et al., 2004;
Cowley & Janus, 2004; Lakshmanan & Krishnan, 2009; Law et al.,
1998; Schlosser, 2006) by investigating a domain of growing
importance to marketers through which false memories about past
product experience may arise— online reviews. Given the emerg-
ing interest in online consumer reviews (e.g., Godes & Mayzlin,
2004), our finding that merely reading three to five online reviews
may lead consumers to report false memories about past product
experience, and spread WOM based on such false experiences is
an important contribution, particularly given consumers’ difficulty
in verifying the veracity of online information.
The finding that brand commitment moderates brand experience
memory errors also advances research that focuses on moderators
to false memories (e.g., Hyman & Billings, 1998; Pezdek et al.,
1997; Scoboria et al., 2017), since brand commitment has not been
previously considered as a moderator, and because previous re-
search has largely focused on the effect of moderators on the
quantity or incidence of memory distortion with limited consider-
ation of the interplay between the characteristics of the information
recipient and characteristics of the misinformation (Cowley &
Janus, 2004; Lakshmanan & Krishnan, 2009; LaTour et al., 2014;
Pezdek et al., 1997; Schlosser, 2006).
Relatedly, our work advances our understanding of how the
(in)consistency of new information with prior consumer beliefs
can affect the structure of false memories. While past research has
examined the impact of negative false beliefs about an experience,
such as illness with a food (Bernstein et al., 2005), or the impact
of positive false beliefs about an experience, such as a family
vacation (Braun et al., 2002), little research has directly examined
the relative effects of positive versus negative information on
consumer memory. By considering information valence, we also
consider the role of inconsistency between prior beliefs and infor-
mation as impacting the subjective plausibility of false memories.
While previous research has identified objective plausibility, we
demonstrate that perceived plausibility of events (e.g., having a
negative experience with a brand) may differ due to differences in
prior brand commitment. Thus, we extend research on the role of
subjective plausibility in false memories (Hyman, 1999).
175
We also build on research that has examined motivational false
memories. There has been a distinction in the false memory
literature between false memories created via low processing (e.g.,
list learning errors) versus high processing (e.g., high elaboration
of messages; Drivdahl & Zaragoza, 2001; LaTour et al., 2014).
Our research adds to this work by demonstrating additional con-
ditions of high elaboration and processing under which false
memories may arise. Despite the fact that high commitment con-
sumers are very knowledgeable about their preferred brand, and
likely to pay close attention to any brand information suggesting
high processing, nonetheless they are susceptible to the effects of
false positive misinformation.
While past research on false memories in a consumption context
has examined both memories for past experiences (e.g., falsely
attributing postevent information to personal experience; Braun,
1999) and memories for lists of information (e.g., recalling items
that were not presented on the list; Mehta, Hoegg, & Chakravarti,
2011), we limit our investigation to autobiographical false mem-
ories. While distortions in both paradigms are termed false mem-
ories, recent evidence that false memories for lists and experiences
have only a small correlation (r ⫽ .12; Zhu, Chen, Loftus, Lin, &
Dong, 2013) suggests that different mechanisms may underlie
these two effects. Thus, future research can further investigate how
motivational variables may impact false memories for lists.
Finally, the finding that false memories of past experience can
be detected even after just a single exposure to online reviews
written by unknown others is noteworthy in that it suggests that
false memories may be more pervasive than imagined. Although
the proportion of respondents in our studies who reported some
type of false memory is consistent with prior studies (25–35%), it
is important to note that research has begun to distinguish between
false beliefs and false memories (Scoboria et al., 2017). Studies
have shown that false beliefs alone may be sufficient to trigger
changes in self-views and behavior (Bernstein et al., 2015; Maz-
zoni et al., 2001). While our studies show evidence of episodic
recollections, supporting our contention that consumers are in fact
exhibiting false memories, it is possible that both false memories
and false beliefs may have similar effects on consumers’ reports of
prior experience with a brand that did not in fact occur. Thus, the
distinction between false memories and false beliefs may not be
consequential for documenting downstream effects on consumers’
WOM behaviors. Our focus in this research was on how brand
commitment affects consumers’ reports of false product experi-
ence and the consequences of such reports, and we leave to future
research the question of the differential effects of false beliefs
versus memories on consumer intentions.
Practical Implications
For marketers, our results further underscore the importance of
assessing consumers’ commitment to a brand. Commitment has
become of increasing interest, as it has been identified as one of the
most important dimensions of attitude strength (Ahluwalia et al.,
2000) with stronger attitudes desirable to marketers because they
tend to be more persistent, more predictive of behavior, and more
resistant to counterattitudinal information (Rucker, Petty, &
Priester, 2007). Our findings extend this previous research on the
benefits of brand commitment to marketers by documenting that
commitment may offer an important additional benefit to brands—
 176 MONTGOMERY AND RAJAGOPAL
consumers may manufacture previous positive experiences with
the brand on exposure to online reviews or information, thereby
enhancing their propensity to spread WOM about the brand, and
making them valuable brand advocates.
Our effects may also be of interest to consumers and public
policy officials given that many online reviews are often found to
be erroneous and misleading—for example, incorrect reviews by
consumers, fake reviews created by a company or its competitors
(Luca & Zervas, 2016) or reviews paid for by companies, with the
numbers of such reviews estimated to range from 1–16% of all
online reviews (Malbon, 2013). Given the significant effects of
reviews on consumer choice and judgments, the deleterious effects
of misleading online reviews have been a source of great interest
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
for consumer advocates, marketers and public policymakers
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
(Hobbs, 2015; Malbon, 2013). Our findings suggest that fake or
tampered reviews may have significant consequences beyond in-
tentions and choices to alter consumer memories. In addition, our
research offers some evidence that high commitment consumers
may inadvertently be contributing to the proliferation of such
information online. This is noteworthy since marketers can in-
creasingly identify high commitment consumers via digital mar-
keting efforts (e.g., social media fans or followers; CMO Council,
2011). Future research may explore additional individual differ-
ence variables that could exacerbate the spread of fake information
online, with an eye toward identifying and developing interven-
tions targeted toward those individuals.
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Received March 2, 2017
Revision received December 11, 2017
Accepted December 16, 2017 䡲