Previous studies have shown that we are more likely to use our emotions when we travel for fun than if we have more functional motives (such as a business trip). In experiments 3 and 4, Ali Faraji Rad instructed half of the participants to imagine that they were going away for fun, while the other half thought they would be travelling with work. Participants who used their emotions were influenced, while those who followed their sense of logic were unaffected by reviewers who resembled themselves. The second experiment showed the same results as the first one. In this way, participants were primed to base their choice on logic or emotions. In the second experiment, half the participants were asked to write down some thoughts on why it is good to use logic when making decisions, while the other half was asked to write about why it is good to use our emotions when making decisions. Similar reviewers had no influence on participants who chose their hotel room on the basis of common sense and logic. Those participants who based their evaluation on feelings, were influenced by reviewers similar to themselves. In the first experiment, half of the participants were asked to use logic in evaluating the hotel, while the others were was asked to base their evaluation on feelings. This difference was greatest when the choice of hotels was based on emotions and not logic,' explains Ali Faraji Rad. 'Participants were more influenced by reviewers who were similar to themselves than by reviewers who were dissimilar. The profiles were designed to create a feeling of similarity or dissimilarity with the participant in the experiment. Participants were then given a negative review of this hotel, along with a profile of the reviewer. In all the experiments, participants were asked to imagine that they were going to book a hotel room online, and that they were reading a review of the hotel they were considering.

He also looked at what circumstance might make the differences greater. In his PhD study at BI Norwegian Business School, Ali Faraji Rad has conducted seven experiments to see whether we are more easily persuaded by people who are similar to us than by people who are dissimilar to us. If you are a 25 year old student, for instance, you might attach different weight to a review from a student of your own age (the reviewer is similar to you) than you would to the comments from a 60 year old professor (who is different from you). Such reviews are written by many different types of guests, families with small children, families with older children, single travellers, older guests and many other groups. Unless we are already familiar with the hotel, we will probably read reviews by former guests at the hotel before making up our minds. The Internet provides us with entirely new ways of finding out what other people feel about different products and services. That is why we often seek advice from others before making decisions. Every day we have to make a number of choices, and it is not always easy to know what the right choice is.

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