Jaeger Bastian, Efendić Emir
Tilburg University, NL.
Maastricht University, NL.
Int Rev Soc Psychol. 2025 Aug 8;38:12. doi: 10.5334/irsp.991. eCollection 2025.
Sharing economy platforms, such as Airbnb, encourage sellers to display profile photos and other personal information to increase consumer trust and engagement. However, research has shown that consumers rely on this information to discriminate against sellers with certain characteristics (e.g., ethnic minorities). Some sharing economy sellers may therefore choose not to display a profile photo because they wish to conceal their appearance or social identity to prevent discrimination or other unfavorable treatment by consumers or because of general privacy concerns. In four preregistered studies with samples from the United States, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, we examined the consequences of withholding profile profiles. We tested how the presence (vs. absence) of personal photos affects consumer trust and preferences for different sellers. Three experimental studies (total = 380) suggest that consumers distrust and avoid hosts without a profile photo. In Study 4, we analyzed 461 ride-sharing listings and found that drivers with a profile photo charge higher prices for otherwise equivalent rides. In sum, our results suggest that sharing economy sellers face a tradeoff between anonymity and earning opportunities.
爱彼迎（Airbnb）等共享经济平台鼓励卖家展示个人资料照片和其他个人信息，以增强消费者的信任并提高参与度。然而，研究表明，消费者会利用这些信息来歧视具有某些特征的卖家（例如少数族裔）。因此，一些共享经济卖家可能会选择不展示个人资料照片，因为他们希望隐瞒自己的外貌或社会身份，以避免受到消费者的歧视或其他不利待遇，或者出于一般隐私方面的考虑。在四项针对来自美国、英国和荷兰样本的预注册研究中，我们考察了不展示个人资料照片的后果。我们测试了个人照片的存在（与不存在）如何影响消费者对不同卖家的信任和偏好。三项实验研究（总计380人）表明，消费者不信任且会避开没有个人资料照片的房东。在研究4中，我们分析了461个拼车服务信息，发现有个人资料照片的司机在提供同等行程时收费更高。总之，我们的研究结果表明，共享经济卖家在匿名性和盈利机会之间面临权衡。
