We examine the effects of facial attractiveness stereotyping in reward-based crowdfunding decisions. Our findings indicate that to a certain extent, a project creator's facial attractiveness is a valid heuristic cue that influences the evaluation of the project's future potential. Based on a large dataset, we propose a U-shaped relationship between project creators’ facial attractiveness and crowdfunding performance. The results imply that potential backers believe that projects initiated by creators whose facial attractiveness is either high or low (vs. medium) have greater future potential, leading to better crowdfunding performance. Additionally, we find that the effects of attractiveness are moderated by the narrative person used in the project introduction and by project updates on the project's progress schedule. Specifically, the U-shaped effect is stronger when attractive (vs. less attractive) project creators describe their projects in first- (vs. third-) person narration, and the effects of facial attractiveness are also enhanced by project updates. Our findings suggest that facial attractiveness is an actionable funding tool, thereby extending our understanding of the complex effect of facial attractiveness in funding.

中文翻译：

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中庸之道：中等吸引力的面孔预示众筹平台上的资金较少


我们研究了面部吸引力刻板印象对基于奖励的众筹决策的影响。我们的研究结果表明，在某种程度上，项目创建者的面部吸引力是影响项目未来潜力评估的有效启发线索。基于大型数据集，我们提出项目创建者的面部吸引力与众筹绩效之间存在 U 形关系。结果表明，潜在支持者认为，面部吸引力高或低（相对于中等）的创作者发起的项目具有更大的未来潜力，从而带来更好的众筹绩效。此外，我们发现吸引力的影响受到项目介绍中使用的叙述者和项目进度计划的项目更新的调节。具体来说，当有吸引力（与不太有吸引力）的项目创建者以第一人称（与第三人称）叙述描述他们的项目时，U 形效应更强，并且项目更新也会增强面部吸引力的效果。我们的研究结果表明，面部吸引力是一种可行的融资工具，从而扩展了我们对面部吸引力在融资中的复杂影响的理解。