User comments on news websites are frequently uncivil and are not supported by reasoned argumentation. These characteristics can have negative effects on the perceived quality of the commented-on journalistic content, yet to date, it remains unclear how such effects occur. We propose three mechanisms that assume that the effect of user comments depends on how deliberately and elaborately the quality of the commented-on news item is judged. We conducted an experiment (N = 633) in which we varied the level of civility and reasoning in the comments accompanying a news article and the brand of the news website on which it was presented. The results showed that a lack of reasoning in the comments decreased the perceived quality of the news item irrespective of brand awareness, but only with high elaboration during judgment. Incivility in the comments decreased the perceived quality of the journalistic content, but only with low elaboration, and only with an unknown news brand. We discuss different psychological mechanisms that can explain this pattern of effects.

中文翻译：

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为什么用户评论会影响新闻内容的感知质量

新闻网站上的用户评论通常不文明，并且没有合理论据支持。这些特征可能会对所评论的新闻内容的感知质量产生负面影响，但迄今为止，仍不清楚这种影响是如何发生的。我们提出了三种机制，这些机制假定用户评论的效果取决于对新闻评论项的质量的审慎和精心判断。我们进行了一项实验（N = 633），在该实验中，我们改变了新闻报道所附带的评论以及提供该新闻报道的新闻网站的品牌的文明程度和推理水平。结果表明，评论中缺乏推理能力会降低新闻项的感知质量，而与品牌知名度无关，但只有在判断过程中精打细算。评论中的顽固性降低了新闻内容的感知质量，但仅以较低的详尽度并且仅以未知的新闻品牌进行。我们讨论了可以解释这种影响模式的不同心理机制。