Why do people rate? Theory and evidence on online ratings

Lafky, Jonathan

doi:10.1016/j.geb.2014.02.008

Cited by 52 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 13 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Not only are ratings influenced by such payments, but in our data those payments are the sole determinant of what type of rating is sent. Despite existing evidence that altruism motivates raters to truthfully inform buyers (Lafky 2014), in our environment we observe no such concern, with raters instead responding solely to the size of side-payments they receive.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…One-sided rating environments, which are the focus of this paper, minimize such strategic considerations. Raters in one-sided systems have been shown to exhibit altruistic concern for informing buyers, as well as reciprocity toward sellers based on the seller's choice of quality (Lafky 2014). Reciprocity based on seller quality is not, in itself, troubling as raters face no dilemma over whom to favor with their ratings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Reciprocity through ratings: An experimental study of bias in evaluations

Halliday

Lafky

2019

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper studies the potential for ratings of seller quality to be influenced by side payments to raters. In a laboratory setting, we find that even modest side payments from sellers to raters have large effects, with the type of rating (favorable or unfavorable) given to a seller determined primarily by how large a monetary transfer the seller makes to the rater. Our results demonstrate that side payments can crowd out a rater's concern for buyers, even in situations where there is no potential for long-term relationship building.(JEL D47, D82, D83)

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reciprocity through ratings: An experimental study of bias in evaluations

Halliday

Lafky

2019

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although online user reviews have been relevant since the late nineties, only in recent times has academic research started to devote an increasing amount of attention to the topic. Psychology and marketing scholars have analyzed the motives leading consumers to write online reviews to aid in the design of more incentivizing and visually attractive rating platforms (Lafky, 2014). Instead, the economic literature has put effort into investigating the effects of online user reviews on market indicators, such as the commercial performance of products/services.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Economic and Behavioral Consequences of Online User Reviews

Magnani

2020

Journal of Economic Surveys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Online user reviews have become an increasingly relevant informational tool during product search and adoption. Recent surveys have shown that consumers trust and rely on online reviews more than they do on website recommendations and experts opinions. As a new way of driving consumer purchasing intentions, online user reviews have therefore come under scrutiny by researchers. The objective of this paper is to offer an overview of the literature regarding the impact of online user reviews on economic indicators (e.g., sales, marketing strategies) and on consumer behavior. Furthermore, following the growing interest of academics and professionals alike on the topic, the present work provides an exploratory analysis of the consequences of online reviews on individual rating behavior – empirical regularities showed that online rating distributions tend to be concentrated on extreme values, possibly because of rating biases. As consumers and firms incorporate the heuristic cues from such distributions into their decision‐making processes, biased ratings might lead to suboptimal choices. This overview presents established results (e.g., the impact of volume on product sales) and insights as issues for future research.

show abstract

“…Thus the ratings in this context differ from product ratings. Users give a fivestar rating to show their appreciation or leave no rating [24]. Therefore, we only focused on volunteers who received five-star ratings or no ratings and consider the former as the appreciation mechanism.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first is appreciation, which we measure using the number of five-star ratings a counselor receives from counselees. Less than 1% of the volunteers in our sample received a rating lower than five-stars, suggesting that students only rated highquality experiences, and avoided leaving low ratings [24]. We draw on the self-verification theory to explain how this technology feature can be used to activate the motive of altruism [26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention or Appreciation? The Impact of Feedback on Online Volunteering

Tan¹,

Jin²,

Dennis³

2020

Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We examine how different types of feedback influence online volunteer contributions in the context of online consultations for college entrance applications, which requires the volunteer counselor and the person receiving help (the counselee) to be online at the same time. We investigate the impact of two types of feedback on volunteers' participation: 1) appreciation, as reflected in the number of positive ratings received by a counselor from counselees; and 2) attention, as reflected in the readership of a counselor's profile page. We find that appreciation encourages the volunteer to engage in more helping behavior, likely because it can activate the volunteer's altruistic motivation. In contrast, attention discourages volunteers to offer more help, possibly because they feel they have accomplished enough or because they feel passed over when they receive a lot of attention but few requests for consultations. The findings suggest that platform designers should encourage appreciation from those helped and provide more nuanced feedback about attention.

show abstract

Why do people rate? Theory and evidence on online ratings

Cited by 52 publications

References 13 publications

Reciprocity through ratings: An experimental study of bias in evaluations

Reciprocity through ratings: An experimental study of bias in evaluations

The Economic and Behavioral Consequences of Online User Reviews

Attention or Appreciation? The Impact of Feedback on Online Volunteering

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About