Silva Rita R, Chrobot Nina, Newman Eryn, Schwarz Norbert, Topolinski Sascha
Social Cognition Center Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Department of Psychology, SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Warsaw, Poland.
Front Psychol. 2017 Dec 19;8:2200. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02200. eCollection 2017.
Can the mere name of a seller determine his trustworthiness in the eye of the consumer? In 10 studies (total = 608) we explored username complexity and trustworthiness of eBay seller profiles. Name complexity was manipulated through variations in username pronounceability and length. These dimensions had strong, independent effects on trustworthiness, with sellers with easy-to-pronounce or short usernames being rated as more trustworthy than sellers with difficult-to-pronounce or long usernames, respectively. Both effects were repeatedly found even when objective information about seller reputation was available. We hypothesized the effect of name complexity on trustworthiness to be based on the experience of high vs. low processing fluency, with little awareness of the underlying process. Supporting this, participants could not correct for the impact of username complexity when explicitly asked to do so. Three alternative explanations based on attributions of the variations in name complexity to seller origin (ingroup vs. outgroup), username generation method (seller personal choice vs. computer algorithm) and age of the eBay profiles (10 years vs. 1 year) were tested and ruled out. Finally, we show that manipulating the ease of reading product descriptions instead of the sellers' names also impacts the trust ascribed to the sellers.
仅仅是卖家的名字就能决定消费者眼中他的可信度吗？在10项研究（总计608例）中，我们探究了eBay卖家资料中用户名的复杂性与可信度之间的关系。通过改变用户名的发音难易程度和长度来操控名字的复杂性。这些维度对可信度有着强烈且独立的影响，用户名发音容易或简短的卖家分别比发音困难或冗长的卖家被认为更值得信赖。即便有卖家声誉的客观信息，这两种影响仍反复出现。我们推测名字复杂性对可信度的影响基于高与低处理流畅度的体验，而对潜在过程几乎没有意识。支持这一观点的是，当明确要求参与者这样做时，他们无法纠正用户名复杂性的影响。基于将名字复杂性的差异归因于卖家来源（内群体与外群体）、用户名生成方法（卖家个人选择与计算机算法）以及eBay资料的使用时长（10年与1年）这三种替代解释经过测试后被排除。最后，我们表明操控产品描述的易读性而非卖家名字也会影响赋予卖家的信任。
