Propose with a Rose? Signaling in Internet Dating Markets
The large literature on costly signaling and the somewhat scant literature on preference signaling had varying success in showing the effectiveness of signals. We use a field experiment to show that even when everyone can send a signal, signals are free and the only costs are opportunity costs, sending a signal increases the chances of success. In an online dating experiment, participants can attach "virtual roses" to a proposal to signal special interest in another participant. We find that attaching a rose to an offer substantially increases the chance of acceptance. This effect is driven by an increase in the acceptance rate when the offer is made to a participant who is less desirable than the proposer. Furthermore, participants endowed with more roses have more of their offers accepted than their counterparts.
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Copy CitationSoohyung Lee, Muriel Niederle, Hye-Rim Kim, and Woo-Keum Kim, "Propose with a Rose? Signaling in Internet Dating Markets," NBER Working Paper 17340 (2011), https://doi.org/10.3386/w17340.
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Published Versions
Soohyung Lee & Muriel Niederle, 2015. "Propose with a rose? Signaling in internet dating markets," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 731-755, December. citation courtesy of