The Impact of Perceived Online Review Inauthenticity on Consumer Information Vigilance: Evidence from Regression, Correlation and Parallel Mediation Analysis

Abstract

Online reviews are a dominant source of pre-purchase information, but fake, paid, exaggerated and AI-generated reviews have made review authenticity a central concern for consumers and platforms. Most research addresses the algorithmic detection of fake reviews, while few studies examine how a consumer’s own perception of inauthenticity shapes information-search and verification behaviour. This study examines the impact of perceived online review inauthenticity (ORI) on consumer information vigilance (CIV), directly and through two proposed parallel mediators, review skepticism (RS) and perceived information uncertainty (PIU). A quantitative, cross-sectional survey was conducted with a structured five-point Likert questionnaire (four constructs, five items each), and 270 valid responses from online shoppers who read reviews before purchase were analysed in jamovi using Cronbach’s alpha, descriptive statistics, Pearson and Spearman correlation, simple and multiple linear regression, and a parallel mediation model with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. The sample was young (72.6% aged 18–25), mostly male (68.5%) and habitual review readers (77.4% always or often). All scales were reliable (α = .704–.832) and all construct means were well above neutral (3.93–4.14). ORI significantly predicted CIV (B = 0.360; β = .394; R² = .156; F(1, 268) = 49.4; p < .001) and correlated strongly with RS (Pearson r = .507; Spearman ρ = .536; p < .001). RS (β = .251) and PIU (β = .424) jointly explained 36.9% of the variance in CIV (F(2, 267) = 78.1; p < .001). Both indirect effects were significant (via RS = 0.0908; via PIU = 0.1481) and the direct effect remained significant (0.1213; p = .018), indicating partial mediation. All four hypotheses were supported. The study extends the Persuasion Knowledge Model to online reviews and supports visible authenticity signals and incentive-free reviews as ways of reducing consumers’ verification burden. Because the design is cross-sectional and self-reported, the findings describe association and statistical pathways rather than causation. KEYWORDS: Online review inauthenticity, Review skepticism, Perceived information uncertainty, Consumer information vigilance, Parallel mediation, Consumer behaviour.