Abstract

Virtual influencers (VI) have received significant recent research attention. Past work has investigated users’ perceptions of their human-likeness, uncanniness, trust, and ability to persuade. However, findings are mixed, which motivates new theoretical approaches and investigations into the antecedents of the typically utilized variables. We thus took an exploratory, inductive approach by conducting two neuroimaging experiments with complementary brain imaging techniques and then derived theoretical explanations based on the findings. We discovered three key antecedents that impact human and virtual influencer evaluations: i) expectancy violation, ii) emotion, and iii) cognitive effort. To validate their explanatory power, we tested their effects on intention to follow using uncanniness, trust and distrust as serial mediators in a third behavioral study. Results confirm our interpretation of neural results and reveal three explanatory paths towards following intentions with human and virtual influencers: expectancy violation → uncanniness, emotion → trust/distrust, and cognitive effort → follow intentions. Against the lacking theorizing of expectancy violation, emotion, and cognitive effort in the current state of research on VI, we provide a significant theoretical contribution to the field by showing how they fundamentally predict further evaluations. Our results can guide design theories for the creation of virtual influencer accounts and help companies to better evaluate the predictors for successful VI marketing, as well as inform future information systems studies that wish to take an exploratory, inductive approach using neurophysiological data.

DOI

10.17705/1jais.00930

Download

Share

COinS