LanguageTerm (authority = ISO 639-3:2007); (type = text)
English
Abstract (type = abstract)
Recommendations often play a key role in making routine daily decisions or consuming a variety of information, and therefore, recommender systems (RSs) that evaluate, filter, and deliver personalized information are becoming increasingly important. Despite its growing significance, the trustworthiness evaluation of recommenders and recommendations has been relatively unexplored. The goal of this dissertation is to understand the influence of cognitive and social factors on the trustworthiness evaluation in active recommendation seeking behavior under natural or uncontrolled settings. Four research questions (RQs) were addressed: the motivations of engaging in recommendation seeking behavior (RQ1); the influence of cognitive (Propensity to Trust, Topic Familiarity, Risk, and Uncertainty) (RQ2) and social (Tie Strength and Homophily) (RQ3) factors on the trustworthiness evaluation; and their interaction effects, if any (RQ4).
Thirty-three undergraduate and graduate students were recruited through purposive sampling, and were asked to record one-week diaries about their real-life recommendation seeking experiences under uncontrolled settings, followed by exit interviews. Answers to open- and close-ended questions from diaries and interview transcripts were collected and imported to NVivo12 for qualitative analysis and SPSS25 for statistical analysis. Content analyses were conducted for the recommendation needs and the trustworthiness characteristics. Linear regressions were adopted to investigate the influential factors and their interactions in the trustworthiness evaluation.
Functional (affective and cognitive) and temporal (long- and short-term) aspects were identified as the two main criteria of recommendation needs (RQ1). Cognitive needs were dominantly found, while affective needs were also critical in a considerable number of episodes. Prompt applicability and time affordances were noticeable in the characteristics of short- and long-term needs, respectively. The four cognitive factors did not statistically influence the trustworthiness evaluation (RQ2), while Tie Strength between the seekers and the recommenders did (RQ3). Homophily (Status, Value, and Situation) influenced the trustworthiness evaluation, and its recognition made the recommendations be perceived to be more useful, persuasive, and emotionally relieving (RQ3). While no statistical interactions between any of the factors existed in the main and interaction effects model, the interaction-only model showed that the seekers’ Propensity to Trust and their Tie Strength with the recommenders influenced each other in the trustworthiness evaluation (RQ4). This study, in a “natural” setting, found, contrary to previous research conducted in “controlled” settings, that cognitive factors did not significantly affect the judgement of trustworthiness. The strong influence of homophily on trustworthiness suggests that RSs should, at least in some instances, provide recommendations from non-homophilic recommenders.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Communication, Information and Library Studies
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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