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Trust And Bias In Peer-To-Peer Ratings: Why Peer-To-Peer Service Ratings Are Nearly Always Positive, And How They Can Be Fixed, Michael Moorhouse

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Transactions in the peer-to-peer sharing economy carry high risk and uncertainty. Consumers exchange with non-professional providers with whom they have no past history, and must rely on ratings and reviews for choice selection. However, there is a large positive bias in the ratings, making differentiation difficult, and causing some consumers to lose trust. Despite these concerns, little progress has been made to demonstrate the cause of the bias or how it can be fixed. I address this gap by demonstrating that consumers evaluate peer-peer experiences based on trust. This trust evaluation, in concert with network and social factors, contributes to …