How to choose a car ride. A digital experimental approach to investigate the role of authority and trust in BlaBlaCar's user decision-making

This study addresses the role of authority and trust in the choices made by BlaBlaCar users when selecting drivers. Authority and trust play a crucial role in understanding users’ preferences in light of the interdependence between roles on trust for legitimacy, while the consistent and reliable of authority reinforces the latter. We conducted a digital experiment on the BlaBlaCar app from December 2023 to January 2024, where we created two similar driver profiles with multiple features (route availability, driving skills, driver characteristics, feedback, etc.). The only difference between the two profiles is that one driver is a member of the army, while the other is an ordinary person. The hypothesis that people might choose trust and reliability than an ordinary person. The main results show that the military driver’s profile received more bookings than the other, suggesting that authority figures can influence users’ choices. We analyze the results with role and positive drivers based on users’ sociodemographic characteristics.