Put a dozen women together and they will quickly spill out how they feel, talk about what is good, and complain about the negative. Yet, if they enter online sites that involve feedback, they tend to be silent, apparently because they feel the pressure of a backlash against them.
This was discovered in a study led by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Their findings, they wrote, point to a “broader societal issue.”
The two Israeli universities are highly ranked and prestigious; Erasmus University belongs to the top 10 universities in the world in the field of economics and business, according to US News & World Report.
The team based their findings on an analysis of more than 1.2 billion reviews, supplemented by two controlled lab experiments that included over 1,170 English-speaking participants showing that when dissatisfied, women are less likely than men to post a review, while satisfied women and men submit reviews at similar rates.
They found a significant gender rating gap in online reviews, with possible economic and social implications. Average ratings by women on platforms like Google, Amazon, IMDb, TripAdvisor, and Yelp are consistently higher than men’s average ratings.
Women are reluctant to share negative feedback online
Yelp (for the uninitiated) is a combination of HELP and YES. It is based on trusted local business information, photos, and review content to supply a one-stop local platform for consumers to discover, connect, and transact with local businesses of all sizes by making it easy to ask for a quote, make an appointment or purchase, join a waiting list, or make a reservation.
The researchers, who published their study in the prestigious Nature Human Behavior under the title “Gender rating gap in online reviews,” suggested that the difference results from women’s greater reluctance to share negative comments because they fear being attacked by others online.
The study was led by Dr. Andreas Bayerl from Erasmus, Dr. Yaniv Dover from Hebrew University, and Prof. Hila Riemer and Prof. Danny Shapira from Ben-Gurion University.
The researchers called for awareness of this widespread and consistent gap and for efforts to find ways to minimize it. The researchers also highlighted the need for changes in society around the world to create conditions in which people – especially women – feel comfortable expressing their views without being concerned about the consequences.
Although women and men generally have similar attitudes about products or experiences, women are more hesitant to express negative opinions in online public forums, the team found. This reluctance may stem from societal expectations that place greater emphasis on communal and empathetic behavior in women, leading them to avoid negative evaluations and verbal insults.
Women’s average ratings are higher than men’s by 0.1 stars on a five-point scale. Such a gap is important and impactful for online reviews, especially since small differences in online review scores lead to meaningful changes in ranking, which have significant economic implications, they continued.
“These findings have significant implications for consumers, businesses, online platforms, and society at large. Given online reviews’ critical role in influencing purchasing decisions, the gender rating gap may distort perceptions of products and services.
“Small rating differences can lead to large shifts in rankings, potentially disadvantaging businesses or creating misinformed consumer choices,” they concluded.