Biases in Online Opinion Platforms: A Literature Review & Future Direction

In online opinion platforms, heuristic processing, as opposed to systematic cognitive processing, is a common way people adopt to cope with information overload. Under this circumstance, users make fast and easy judgments, which however may involve more errors or bias (Reisberg 2018). As such, this research-in-progress is being conducted to address two main goals. First, we examine the definition, antecedents, and consequences of online cognitive bias, thereby articulating what existent cognitive biases are. Second, we consider what we don't' know about online cognitive bias and translate these gaps into opportunities for future study. To accomplish these objectives, we conduct an extensive literature review in the Basket of Eight journals, by reviewing publications for 10 years. Based on our current work, we suggest that more research can be done in a broader range of online opinion sharing platforms covering more online cognitive bias types.