ABSTRACT Studying how weather conditions might relate to customer ratings and reviews represents a research lacuna, even though anecdotal evidence suggests that weather is likely to influence the reviewer behavior. Building on affect theories, the present research combines two complementary methodologies to investigate whether and how the levels of air quality influence customers’ online numeric ratings and review-writing behaviors. The results of econometric analysis based on a large-scale daily review data set obtained from a restaurant review site reveal that customers are more prone to provide relatively lower numeric ratings when they are exposed to a high-pollution environment. Also, the customers are reluctant to expend time and effort in writing detailed and vivid reviews on high air pollution days. The subsequent randomized controlled experiment further confirms the causal effect of psychologically experiencing an air pollution situation on decreased rating scores by showing that the feelings of anxiety and psychological aggressiveness serially mediate the effect. This study is the first to empirically establish the link between air quality and review bias, and the findings suggest that merchants should integrate air quality information into their online review management strategies and provide incentives to stimulate reviewers to write high-quality reviews on high air pollution days.

中文翻译：

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受污染的在线评论：空气污染对评论者行为的影响

摘要 研究天气状况如何与客户评分和评论相关是一个研究空白，尽管轶事证据表明天气可能会影响评论者的行为。在影响理论的基础上，本研究结合了两种互补的方法来研究空气质量水平是否以及如何影响客户的在线数字评分和评论撰写行为。基于从餐厅评论网站获得的大规模每日评论数据集的计量经济学分析结果表明，当客户暴露于高污染环境时，他们更倾向于提供相对较低的数字评级。此外，客户不愿意花费时间和精力在高空气污染日撰写详细而生动的评论。随后的随机对照实验进一步证实了心理上经历空气污染情况对评分下降的因果影响，通过显示焦虑和心理攻击性的感觉连续介导了这种影响。本研究首次通过实证建立空气质量与评论偏见之间的联系，研究结果表明商家应将空气质量信息纳入其在线评论管理策略，并提供激励措施以刺激评论者针对高空气污染撰写高质量评论天。