Abstract
Explaining why a product is recommended to customers on an online platform enhances the effectiveness of recommendation systems. The use of explanations on these platforms has been ubiquitously aimed at enhancing customer trust in the platform and the product recommended. Explanations come in various types, such as feature, item, and social. However, little is known about how the different types of explanations interact with consumer context. Additionally, previous studies have shown that users go through different consumer funnel stages before making a choice. They react distinctly as they move through these stages due to varying ways in which they instinctively handle information and expectations at each stage, creating different psychological contexts. Prior research has focused on the accuracy of recommendation algorithms, behaviors of consumers in different stages of the purchase funnel, and the impact of collaborative filtering recommendation algorithms across customer purchases stages. To the best of our knowledge, very little scholarship has investigated the effect of the different types of recommendation algorithm explanations across different consumer funnel stages and the interaction of explanation types and consumer funnel stages on customers’ behaviors. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of different explanation types (feature, item, and social) on varying customer purchase funnels (awareness, interest, and desire) using construal level theory. We aim to identify which explanation types will be effective and efficient at any of the consumer stages, and which explanation type will affect consumers’ willingness to meet their objective at each stage. Using the context of a movie recommendation system, we will use a 3x3 factorial experiment involving hypothetical tasks and survey questions. Discussion of this study will center on the results of the ANOVA analysis. The results of this study will assist in the design of online platforms’ explanations to provide the right personalized explanations to customers at any of the purchase funnel stages.
Recommended Citation
Obasi, Chigozie Francis; Reeck, Crystal; and Bauman, Konstantin, "Does Psychological Context Matter for Explanations? A Study of Recommendation Explanations Across the Consumer Funnel" (2026). AMCIS 2026 TREOs. 91.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/treos_amcis2026/91