The more aesthetic, the better? The impact of photo aesthetics on perceived review helpfulness

Review helpfulness is crucial for assessing the quality of online reviews and mitigating information overload. Although numerous studies have explored the impact of textual and reviewer characteristics on review helpfulness, the role of photo aesthetics remains important but underexplored. This study addresses this gap by investigating the impact of photo aesthetics on perceived review helpfulness and its underlying mediating effects. The hotel review data from TripAdvisor.com exhibit an inverted U-shaped effect of photo aesthetics on perceived review helpfulness, in which review text length moderates this relationship. To further validate this causal relationship and explore the underlying mediating effects, an experimental study is conducted. The experimental results confirm the causal impact of photo aesthetics on perceived review helpfulness and reveal that perceived pleasure, reviewer effort and review authenticity mediate the relationship. These novel insights challenge the notion that "the more aesthetic, the better" for review photos, offering new theoretical and practical implications.