Abstract
Online interactions anchor on the creation and maintenance of individuals’ virtual profiles. As a critical component of virtual profiles, digital photos are subject to artificial enhancements and may deviate from individuals’ actual physical appearances. The ubiquitous adoption of digital photo enhancement applications may influence how individuals behave in online interactions. We study, in an online controlled experiment, how individuals’ trust and trustworthiness change after digitally enhancing their profile photos. Participants played the trust game (Berg et al. 1995) with players’ profile photos shown saliently on the game interface. Participants in the treatment group enhanced their profile photos and used enhanced profile photos during the game. Experiment results suggest that senders reduce the amount sent (exhibit lower trust) after digital photo enhancement, while receivers increase the amount returned (exhibit higher trustworthiness). Additional analysis reveals significant gender heterogeneity in the impact of photo enhancement. Female senders reduce trust more than male senders, and male responders increase trustworthiness more. Analyzing participants’ responses to the post-experiment questionnaire, we find the treatment effect of photo enhancement could be attributed to changes in trust propensity and risk attitudes.
| Original language | English |
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| Title of host publication | INFORMS ISS Paper Development Workshop 2023 |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2023 |