Congruent or Conflicted? The Effects of Prevalence and Valence Cues in Online Comments on Perceived Descriptive Norms Regarding e-Cigarette Use

Previous studies have investigated how the valence of comments – whether they support or oppose the reported issue – and the prevalence cue in comments – whether others engage in the reported behavior or not – affect norm perception among those who are exposed to online news with comments. The present study advances this research by testing the combined effects of prevalence and valence cues on readers’ perceived descriptive norms through the lens of the theory of evolutionary norm formation and the exemplification theory. The e-cigarette use in Hong Kong was chosen as the context due to its controversy. A 2 (Prevalence cue: high e-cigarette-use norm vs. low e-cigarette-use norm) × 2 (Valence cue: pro-e-cigarette vs. anti-e-cigarette) between-subjects experiment (N = 955) was conducted. Results indicated that comments suggesting a high prevalence of e-cigarette use were perceived as unrepresentative of the public, rendering the pro- or anti-e-cigarette valence of the comments irrelevant for inferring descriptive norms.