Biblio

Online peer-to-peer platforms like Airbnb allow hosts to list a property (e.g. a house, or a room) for short-term rentals. In this work, we examine how hosts describe themselves on their Airbnb profile pages. We use a mixed-methods study to develop a categorization of the topics that hosts self-disclose in their profile descriptions, and show that these topics differ depending on the type of guest engagement expected. We also examine the perceived trustworthiness of profiles using topic-coded profiles from 1,200 hosts, showing that longer self-descriptions are perceived to be more trustworthy. Further, we show that there are common strategies (a mix of topics) hosts use in self-disclosure, and that these strategies cause differences in perceived trustworthiness scores. Finally, we show that the perceived trustworthiness score is a significant predictor of host choice–especially for shorter profiles that show more variation. The results are consistent with uncertainty reduction theory, reflect on the assertions of signaling theory, and have important design implications for sharing economy platforms, especially those facilitating online-to-offline social exchange.

Self-disclosure is rewarding and provides significant benefits for individuals, but it also involves risks, especially in social media settings. We conducted an online experiment to study the relationship between content intimacy and willingness to self-disclose in social media, and how identification (real name vs. anonymous) and audience type (social ties vs. people nearby) moderate that relationship. Content intimacy is known to regulate self-disclosure in face-to-face communication: people self-disclose less as content intimacy increases. We show that such regulation persists in online social media settings. Further, although anonymity and an audience of social ties are both known to increase self-disclosure, it is unclear whether they (1) increase self-disclosure baseline for content of all intimacy levels, or (2) weaken intimacy's regulation effect, making people more willing to disclose intimate content. We show that intimacy always regulates self-disclosure, regardless of settings. We also show that anonymity mainly increases self-disclosure baseline and (sometimes) weakens the regulation. On the other hand, an audience of social ties increases the baseline but strengthens the regulation. Finally, we demonstrate that anonymity has a more salient effect on content of negative valence.The results are critical to understanding the dynamics and opportunities of self-disclosure in social media services that vary levels of identification and types of audience.