From self-perception to feedback: mapping sustainability-oriented self-descriptions to Airbnb reviews

Ortu, Marco;Contu, Giulia;Frigau, Luca

2025-01-01

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Abstract

Understanding the relationship between self-perception and online feedback is crucial for assessing behavioral consistency in sustainability-oriented consumers. This study examines whether Airbnb users who describe themselves using sustainability-related terms reflect similar concerns in their reviews. We first filter user self-descriptions based on sustainability-related keywords and apply topic modeling to both self-descriptions and reviews. To analyze the relationship between self-reported identity and review content, we employ a chi-squared independence test on the dominant topics of self-descriptions and reviews. Additionally, we assess the association between the dominant self-description topic and the dominant emotion expressed in reviews. Our findings provide insights into the extent to which self-declared sustainability orientations influence user-generated content, oering implications for consumer behavior analysis and sustainability communication in online platforms.