Drawing on construal level theory, prior literature has found a positivity bias in online ratings when consumers evaluate an experience from a psychological distance, whether spatial or temporal. Self-distancing theory posits that psychological distance enables individuals to reflect on psychologically distant negative experiences more genuinely, in a less biased way. This raises the question of whether the positivity bias in ratings due to psychological distance persists for negative experiences. To address this question, we collected data from a large review platform that enables the identification of reviewers’ spatial and temporal distance. The negativity of an experience was operationalized via review text sentiment. We introduced spatial and temporal distance as moderators between sentiment negativity and ratings and found a negative moderation by spatial distance and a positive moderation by temporal distance. Our findings indicate that the relationship between sentiment negativity and rating grows stronger under spatial distance and gets weaker under temporal distance. Text mining confirmed self-distancing as the driver behind the spatial moderation and construal levels as the driver behind the temporal moderation. We attribute the asymmetric moderations to differences in the tangibility of spatial distance (more tangible) and temporal distance (less tangible). These results improve our understanding of reviewing behavior and can help platforms de-bias ratings.

中文翻译：

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远距离回顾：揭示负面情绪与评级之间时空距离的不对称调节

根据解释水平理论，先前的文献发现，当消费者从心理距离（无论是空间还是时间）评估体验时，在线评级中存在积极偏差。自我疏远理论认为，心理距离使个人能够以更少偏见的方式更真实地反思心理上疏远的负面经历。这就提出了一个问题：由于心理距离而导致的评级中的积极偏差是否仍然存在于消极体验中。为了解决这个问题，我们从一个大型评论平台收集了数据，该平台能够识别评论者的空间和时间距离。体验的消极性是通过评论文本情绪来实现的。我们引入空间和时间距离作为情绪消极性和评级之间的调节因素，并发现空间距离的负调节和时间距离的正调节。我们的研究结果表明，情绪消极性和评级之间的关系在空间距离下变得更强，在时间距离下变得更弱。文本挖掘证实自我距离是空间调节背后的驱动因素，解释水平是时间调节背后的驱动因素。我们将不对称调节归因于空间距离（更有形）和时间距离（不太有形）的有形性差异。这些结果提高了我们对评论行为的理解，并可以帮助平台消除评级偏见。