Considering the unique mechanism underlying time of day effects due to biological clock on cognition, mood, and behavior, this study seeks to investigate the time of day effects on consumers' online review characteristics in the context of homestay platforms. Mixed approaches were employed, where the textual analysis and econometric analysis were based on the dataset with 189,523 reviews received from Tujia and an online randomized experiment recruited 378 participants. The results show that in the daytime consumers are under high cognitive load and more likely to rely on affective processes rather than cognitive processes when they craft online reviews, and conversely in the nighttime. The emotional expressions extracted from review texts and reflected in online ratings suggest consumers' mood change along time of a day, which further influences their review texts crafting and online ratings posting. Positive (negative) emotions are found to be stronger (weaker) in the daytime than nighttime. This work is conducive to enrichment in extant literature in hospitality academia and numerous rationales and theories in psychology field. Our work suggests important implications for homestay platform operations, hosts' managerial strategies, and consumers’ decision-making.

中文翻译：

---

一天中的时间对消费者在线评论特征的影响：来自民宿平台的证据


考虑到生物钟对认知、情绪和行为产生影响的独特机制，本研究旨在探讨民宿平台背景下一天中的时间对消费者在线评论特征的影响。采用混合方法，其中文本分析和计量经济学分析基于来自途家的 189,523 条评论的数据集，并且在线随机实验招募了 378 名参与者。结果表明，白天消费者的认知负荷较高，在撰写在线评论时更有可能依赖情感过程而不是认知过程，而在夜间则相反。从评论文本中提取并反映在在线评分中的情感表达表明消费者一天中不同时间的情绪变化，这进一步影响他们的评论文本制作和在线评分发布。研究发现，白天的积极（消极）情绪比夜间更强（更弱）。这项工作有利于丰富酒店学术界的现有文献和心理学领域的众多原理和理论。我们的工作对民宿平台运营、房东的管理策略和消费者的决策具有重要意义。