Role of gender in the creation and persuasiveness of online reviews

Prashanth Ravula, Amit Bhatnagar and Dinesh K Gauri

Journal of Business Research, 2023, vol. 154, issue C

Abstract: Online reviews play an important role in consumers’ purchase journeys and therefore have received considerable research attention. Yet research is limited as to whether and how a reviewer’s gender affects persuasiveness. In response, we analyze more than one million reviews posted on the website Yelp and find that an author’s gender indeed affects review text and, consequently, persuasiveness. Specifically, we find that (1) reviews posted by women (vs. men) are more authentic, less analytical, more positive-affective, and less negative-affective and (2) authentic, analytical, negative-affective text increases the persuasiveness of reviews while positive-affective text lowers it. We also find that the persuasiveness of reviews from women (vs. men) depends on product category, suggesting that retailers should consider the product category and authors’ gender when ranking reviews.

Keywords: Online reviews; Gender differences; Textual analysis; Bayesian models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:154:y:2023:i:c:s0148296322008517

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113386

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