Americans are shopping online in record numbers this holiday season, according to an analysis by Adobe Analytics. Online shopping certainly comes with added convenience: No traffic, no long lines, and a larger selection of available items—not to mention you can shop while wearing pajamas from the comfort of your sofa. But it can also be tricky to figure out exactly what you’re getting: How will that sweater fit? What do those sheets actually feel like? And do those sneakers really run small?
That’s where online reviews come in. The best online retailers have cultivated and perfected their review systems. But how truthful are online reviews?
A large new study published in the journal Nature Human Behavior seeks to better understand the systematic biases in online reviews.
Researchers categorized 1.2 billion reviews from five sites—Amazon, Google, IMDb, TripAdvisor, and Yelp—to look for gender differences in online ratings. They sought a gender gap across a wide variety of sites, products and services, and locations. They also looked at ratings over the course of years.
When the researchers combined all of the data, they consistently found that women gave higher ratings than men, by about 0.1 stars out of a scale of 5—a statistically significant difference. This held true no matter the product, service, or geographic location. “Women’s mean online review ratings are significantly more favorable than men’s,” the authors wrote.
While 0.1 stars may not seem like an important difference, what’s remarkable is that it was consistent across so many variables, the authors explained. After they established a difference between genders, researchers wanted to ask another question: Why do women tend to give higher ratings than men do? To answer this, they conducted two additional experiments.
In the first, researchers asked 1,100 participants—both men and women—to rate paintings created by artificial intelligence. Then, they asked participants how they felt about the paintings and whether they would post a public review of their opinion. Men and women had similar numbers of positive and negative reactions to the artwork. But when asked to post a public review, women were more hesitant than men to give a low rating about the paintings they disliked.
In the second study, researchers asked 1,100 participants to rate short musical pieces and post reviews about their opinions. This time, when participants hesitated to give a negative review, researchers asked why. As in the previous study, men and women held similar attitudes about the music they heard and women were more hesitant than men to post a negative review. In addition, women reported feeling more worried about judgment or backlash if they did post an unfavorable review.
This suggests that women may not be completely honest in posting online reviews, researchers concluded, perhaps because they don’t want to appear to be judgmental or because they would feel bad for criticizing someone or something.
The take-home message: This study suggests that, when providing online reviews, women may censor themselves somewhat to avoid judgment or backlash. Whenever you read online reviews, it’s important to remember that they are written by real people with their own personal biases. Happy online shopping!
