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Propose with a rose? Signaling in internet dating markets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Soohyung Lee  and
Muriel Niederle
Soohyung Lee*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Maryland, College Park, USA
Muriel Niederle
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, USA
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

A growing number of papers theoretically study the effects of introducing a preference signaling mechanism. However, the empirical literature has had difficulty proving a basic tenet, namely that an agent has more success when the agent uses a signal. This paper provides evidence based on a field experiment in an online dating market. Participants are randomly endowed with two or eight “virtual roses” that a participant can use for free to signal special interest when asking for a date. Our results show that, by sending a rose, a person can substantially increase the chance of the offer being accepted, and this positive effect is neither because the rose attracts attention from recipients nor because the rose is associated with unobserved quality. Furthermore, we find evidence that roses increase the total number of dates, instead of crowding out offers without roses attached. Despite the positive effect of sending roses, a substantial fraction of participants do not fully utilize their endowment of roses and even those who exhaust their endowment on average do not properly use their roses to maximize their dating success.

Keywords

Field experimentMatchingPreference signalingMarket designOnline dating

JEL classification

A11: Role of Economics • Role of Economists • Market for Economists J12: Marriage • Marital Dissolution • Family Structure • Domestic Abuse D82: Asymmetric and Private Information • Mechanism Design
Type
Original Paper
Information
Experimental Economics , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 731 - 755
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Economic Science Association

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Footnotes

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10683-014-9425-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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