Construal Matching in Online Search: Applying Text Analysis to Illuminate the Consumer Decision Journey

2020 ◽  
pp. 002224372094069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashlee Humphreys ◽  
Mathew S. Isaac ◽  
Rebecca Jen-Hui Wang

As consumers move through their decision journey, they adopt different goals (e.g., transactional vs. informational). In this research, the authors propose that consumer goals can be detected through textual analysis of online search queries and that both marketers and consumers can benefit when paid search results and advertisements match consumer search–related goals. In bridging construal level theory and textual analysis, the authors show that consumers at different stages of the decision journey tend to assume different levels of mental construal, or mindsets (i.e., abstract vs. concrete). They find evidence of a fluency-driven matching effect in online search such that when consumer mindsets are more abstract (more concrete), consumers generate textual search queries that use more abstract (more concrete) language. Furthermore, they are more likely to click on search engine results and ad content that matches their mindset, thereby experiencing more search satisfaction and perceiving greater goal progress. Six empirical studies, including a pilot study, a survey, three lab experiments, and a field experiment involving over 128,000 ad impressions provide support for this construal matching effect in online search.

Author(s):  
Wali Khan Monib ◽  
Abdul Qudos Karimi ◽  
Nazifullah Nijat

Alternative assessment has been the focus of many educational researches in EFL classroom. This study was carried out to highlight the definition, characteristics and effects of alternative assessment in EFL context by reviewing current research on assessment. The research consisted of a systematic review of the empirical studies on alternative assessment in EFL classroom. Focusing solely on online search, many studies were found but only (n=24) met the inclusion criteria involving a total of (n=1588) participants. Also, it aimed to scrutinize the methods, participants and findings of the selected studies as well as the locations where they were conducted. The findings indicated that most of the studies (18 out of 24) reported positive effects of employing alternative assessment on language learning skills in EFL classroom. The results also show that the dominant method employed in the articles was quantitative where students were the main focal point involved in the research as their participants. The study is further concluded with a discussion on definition, characteristics and effects of alternative assessment in EFL context.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (10) ◽  
pp. 2813-2819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarun K. Jella ◽  
Linsen T. Samuel ◽  
Alexander J. Acuña ◽  
Ahmed K. Emara ◽  
Atul F. Kamath

Author(s):  
Janet Porter ◽  
Rosalie Hilde

For years, diversity scholars have been calling for more empirical studies that specifically show how linguistic and non-linguistic practices produce asymmetrical differences between and among social groups. To that end, we show that textual analysis methodologies can provide situational, contextual, and empirical research that demonstrates practices and productions of these differences in organizations and workplaces. We further provide researchers with two overlooked approaches of textual analysis methodology that add a multi-level organizational dimension to studying the production of these differences—critical sensemaking and discourse theory. By establishing and maintaining contextual relevance and casting organization as socially constructed on multiple levels, these two approaches help point to systemic-wide strategies for addressing critical organizational, institutional and societal diversity issues such as discrimination or harassment. This chapter will be useful for the diversity researcher who studies linguistic and non-linguistic practices in organizational, institutional, and social formations.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sofia Calderon ◽  
Erik Mac Giolla ◽  
Timothy John Luke ◽  
Lara Warmelink ◽  
Karl Ask ◽  
...  

Our aim was to examine how people communicate their true and false intentions. Based on construal level theory (Trope & Liberman, 2010), we predicted that statements of true intentions would be more concretely phrased than statements of false intentions. True intentions refer to more likely future events than false intentions, they should be mentally represented at a lower level of mental construal. This should be mirrored in more concrete language use. Transcripts of truthful and deceptive statements about intentions from six previous experimental studies (total N = 528) were analyzed using two automated verbal content analysis approaches: a folk-conceptual measure of concreteness (Brysbaert, Warriner, and Kuperman, 2014) and linguistic category model scoring (Seih, Beier, & Pennebaker, 2017). Contrary to our hypotheses, veracity did not predict statements’ concreteness scores, suggesting that automated verbal analysis of linguistic concreteness is not a viable deception-detection technique for intentions.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chamil W Senarathne ◽  
Wei Jianguo

BACKGROUND People have access to a massive volume of up-to-date health information processed by various search engines. Before seeing a doctor, people are used to seek information about identification and support available (e.g. doctors, support centers. forum discussions etc.) for their disorder/s online. Researchers have shown that Internet search queries contain much valuable information about the disequilibrium dynamics of various economics activities (e.g. employment, consumption). OCD as a disorder steals much of the valuable time, energy and effort in day-to-day work life and scholars argues that patients diagnosed with OCD may have higher unemployment rates and lower average income. Except for a handful of work examining the relationship between various disorders (e.g. cancer) and online search volume data, the direct linkage between online search behaviour of seeking support for OCD and unemployment in the United States has been completely ignored in the literature. OBJECTIVE The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of online search behaviour of identifying and seeking support for OCD on unemployment level of the United States at aggregate data and age category level. METHODS This paper analyzes 50 closely related online search terms on identifying and seeking support for OCD from March 2006 to June 2019. Ordinary least squares technique is used to identify the significance of the impact of search behaviour on the unemployment levels of the United States. After screening for instrumentality, a reduced version of regression is derived after treating for multicollinearity among regression variables. In order to eliminate the effect of searches made by people other than employed people who have subsequently been unemployed, a diagnostic regression is run. RESULTS The findings show that online search behaviour of identifying and seeking support for OCD significantly impacts unemployment level of the United States at overall regression level (p<0.01, R^2=73%) and age category level regressions (p<0.01, average R^2=66%). Moreover, the diagnostic test confirms that the regression on aggregate data and age category level data properly explains the underlying relationship as hypothesized because the coefficient of Google search queries driven (the effect) by employed population is positive and highly significant in explaining the unemployment level of the United States (p<0.01, average R^2=90%). CONCLUSIONS The findings of this study are helpful for policymakers and regulators in providing useful inputs for designing and administering programms on prevention and counseling OCD diagnosed working population of the United States. In particular, this paper is helpful in identifying the age categories of male and female employed population who are searching and seeking support on OCD. The government institutions in the USA must utilize online search queries for effective analysis and identification of different age category of people who are in need of support. Since search query data are available at country-level and regional level, this could easily be done by IT rather than population surveys that are costly and time consuming.


2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inessa Seifert

In this article, I present a novel relational visualization that supports people at exploration of scientific literature in digital libraries. This visualization provides an integrated view of multiple dimensions concealed in the scientific literature. It displays, for example, authors and scientific organizations together with freely defined search queries and highlights the intersections between them. The proposed visual representation introduces interactive drag-and-drop operations for manipulation of queries in order to retrieve further results. These operations enable information seekers to employ efficient online search strategies that involve Boolean AND, OR and NOT operators. In doing so, an information seeker can refine (or relax) various search queries in an interactive way during a focusing or a defocusing phase. The intersections of queries are made explicitly visible to enable the information seeker to build an individual picture of the research area under investigation and to avoid frustrating ‘zero hit’ situations.


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