Donation-based crowdfunding platforms often claim to pursue equitable outcomes for all beneficiaries, yet many face criticism for failing to do so across different demographic profiles. In response, platform managers are eager to understand how these inequities emerge and explore solutions to address them. In this research, we show that the degree of facial emotional expressiveness of beneficiaries in uploaded images can differentially impact donation amounts for White vs Black beneficiaries. Drawing on social vision theory, we propose that facial emotional expressiveness in images combined with the race of the faces activates racial stereotypes of emotion expression that result in differential donation amounts to Black and White individuals. Analyzing a sample of 4,153 campaigns from GoFundMe between June 2021 and September 2022, along with a follow-up experiment, we find that higher facial emotional expressiveness is associated with significantly lower donation amounts for Black compared to White beneficiaries. Further exploring our moderating constructs reveals that the use of call-to-action cues, affective messaging, and race-gender homophily cues can attenuate the activation of stereotypes and therefore reduce differences in donation amounts between racial groups. Based on these findings, we offer targeted recommendations for platform managers to help reduce racial inequities in crowdfunding outcomes.

中文翻译：

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EXPRESS：基于捐赠的众筹平台中的种族不平等：面部情感表达的作用


基于捐赠的众筹平台通常声称为所有受益人追求公平的结果，但许多平台因未能在不同的人口统计特征中做到这一点而受到批评。作为回应，平台管理者渴望了解这些不平等是如何出现的，并探索解决这些不平等的解决方案。在这项研究中，我们表明，受益人在上传图像中的面部情感表达程度可以不同地影响白人与黑人受益人的捐款金额。借鉴社会视觉理论，我们提出图像中的面部情感表达与面孔的种族相结合，激活了情感表达的种族刻板印象，从而导致对黑人和白人个体的捐赠金额不同。分析了 2021 年 6 月至 2022 年 9 月期间来自 GoFundMe 的 4,153 个活动的样本，以及后续实验，我们发现与白人受益人相比，较高的面部情感表达与黑人受益人的捐款金额显着降低有关。进一步探索我们的调节结构表明，使用号召性用语线索、情感信息和种族性别同性恋线索可以减轻刻板印象的激活，从而减少种族群体之间捐款金额的差异。基于这些发现，我们为平台管理者提供有针对性的建议，以帮助减少众筹结果中的种族不平等。