What do Airbnb hosts reveal by posting photographs online and how does it affect their perceived trustworthiness?

被引:61
作者
Ert, Eyal [1 ]
Fleischer, Aliza [1 ]
机构
[1] Hebrew Univ Jerusalem, Robert H Smith Fac Agr Food & Environm, Dept Environm Econ & Management, IL-76100 Jerusalem, Israel
关键词
Airbnb profile; attractiveness; first impression; impression formation; peer-to-peer markets; sharing economy; trust inference; 1ST IMPRESSIONS; SHARING ECONOMY; GAME-THEORY; TRUST; REPUTATION; BEAUTY; RECIPROCITY; DYNAMICS; GENDER; SMILE;
D O I
10.1002/mar.21297
中图分类号
F [经济];
学科分类号
02 ;
摘要
The use of sellers' personal photographs online is ubiquitous in sharing economy platforms such as Airbnb. This paper addresses two questions. First, what type of personal photos do hosts choose to post on Airbnb? Second, which of the characteristics of their photos affects their perceived trustworthiness? We answer these questions by building a structural equation model of the relation between the characteristics of the photos and the perceived trustworthiness of the hosts. The antecedents of trust in this model were defined based on insights from psychology regarding first impressions. We found that the hosts' visual characteristics (e.g., gender) as revealed in their online photographs affect their perceived trustworthiness both directly and indirectly via attractiveness. We also found that image characteristics, which are not related directly to the traits of the host in the picture (e.g., photograph quality), play a significant role in trust inference. Interestingly, the hosts' choices of their personal photos suggest that they may not be aware of these effects.
引用
收藏
页码:630 / 640
页数:11
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