Article
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Factors that Affect Perceptions of Gig Workers
Version 1
: Received: 11 May 2023 / Approved: 11 May 2023 / Online: 11 May 2023 (12:40:52 CEST)
How to cite: Carroll, Z. Factors that Affect Perceptions of Gig Workers. Preprints 2023, 2023050853. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202305.0853.v1 Carroll, Z. Factors that Affect Perceptions of Gig Workers. Preprints 2023, 2023050853. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202305.0853.v1
Abstract
Just 2 years ago, 35% of Americans were involved with gig work. According to Statista, over half of Americans will be freelancing through online gig work by 2027. Research on how consumers select gig workers, or taskers, is still mostly underexplored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential impact of a tasker's gender and self-presentation in their profile picture on consumer perceptions and choices. We proposed that taskers who have a professional headshot as the profile picture will receive higher ratings on competence, warmth, and trustworthiness than taskers whose profile picture is a selfie. We also proposed that taskers who smile in their profile picture will receive higher ratings on competency, warmth, and trustworthiness than taskers who do not smile. Furthermore, we predicted that professionalism has a stronger positive impact on perceptions of male taskers than on female taskers for our third hypothesis. Lastly, we hypothesized that gender bias exists on gig platforms, such that smiling will have a stronger positive effect on female taskers’ competence, warmth, and trustworthiness than on male taskers. Our study had 292 Kennesaw State University students who were tested online through Qualtrics. Our first and second hypotheses are not supported but our last two have partial support. There is a significant main effect of gender, and we find that male taskers are rated significantly higher on competence, warmth, and trustworthiness, compared to female taskers. Professional photos give male taskers an advantage over professional female taskers and female taskers are punished more for not smiling than male taskers. Future directions include looking into factors such as Race, Age, or background setting could be investigated. Conducting similar tests in a larger and more externally valid setting could yield more concrete results. Continuation into this new area of gig work could lead the way into revolutionizing how freelancers conduct their public appearance or how gig work platforms could handle this new market.
Keywords
gig work; Gender Bias; Online; Freelance; Stigma
Subject
Social Sciences, Psychology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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