Impact of rounded rating display and confidence cues on the subsequent reviews

Online review platforms frequently use rounded rating displays, rounding average ratings to the nearest half-star for simplicity. However, such practice can misguide consumers by creating discrepancies between displayed ratings and actual quality. For example, providers with nearly identical average ratings (e.g. 4.25 and 4.26) might be displayed as 4 and 4.5 stars, respectively, while significantly different providers (e.g. 3.76 and 4.25) might both appear as 4 stars. Such rounding misguides consumers’ pre-purchase expectations and can negatively influence post-purchase satisfaction when consumers’ experiences fail to match expectations. Despite the prevalence of rounded rating displays, their impact on subsequent review behavior remains underexplored. Using a regression discontinuity design and a controlled experiment, we investigate how rounded rating displays influence review generation. Our findings reveal that ratings rounded up (compared to rounded down) prompt consumers to leave reviews with lower ratings and less positive but more negative sentiments. Furthermore, lower rating dispersion and higher information diversity intensify these effects by strengthening consumers’ confidence on pre-purchase expectations. This study underscores the significant role of design features, such as rounded rating displays, in shaping review behavior, providing valuable insights for platform designers seeking to mitigate unintended consequences and improve the way platforms present information.