Bayerl Andreas, Dover Yaniv, Riemer Hila, Shapira Daniel
Erasmus School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Hebrew University Business School, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.
Nat Hum Behav. 2025 Mar;9(3):507-520. doi: 10.1038/s41562-024-02003-6. Epub 2024 Oct 7.
Although online reviews are used by many people to make decisions, these reviews may be biased. On the basis of 1.2 billion observations across five leading online review platforms and two lab studies (n = 1,172 and n = 1,165; US respondents fluent in English), we provide evidence for a consistent and systematic gender rating gap: women's mean online review ratings are significantly more favourable than men's. We suggest that although men and women, on average, generally do not differ in their 'real' attitudes, their ratings do differ when it comes to online reviews. Our lab studies revealed that such differences are due to gender differences in the propensity to share negative attitudes online, possibly due to women's greater concern about social consequences. Our findings highlight the need for societal change to create conditions in which people, particularly women, feel comfortable publicly expressing genuine attitudes, especially in cases of dissatisfaction, without being concerned about the consequences.
尽管许多人会参考在线评论来做决策，但这些评论可能存在偏差。基于对五个领先在线评论平台的12亿条观测数据以及两项实验室研究（样本量分别为n = 1172和n = 1165；美国英语流利的受访者），我们发现了一个持续且系统的性别评分差距：女性的在线评论平均评分显著高于男性。我们认为，虽然男性和女性的“真实”态度总体上平均并无差异，但在在线评论方面，他们的评分确实存在差异。我们的实验室研究表明，这种差异是由于在网上分享负面态度的倾向存在性别差异，这可能是因为女性更担心社会后果。我们的研究结果凸显了社会变革的必要性，即创造条件让人们，尤其是女性，在公开表达真实态度时感到自在，特别是在不满的情况下，而不必担心后果。
