DDRIG in DRMS: Rational and Heuristic Search

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

This project explores how people decide where to look when searching for valued outcomes (like products, services, or jobs) when many options are available. One example is how consumers visit travel websites when booking flights. This project helps explain the order in which a person would visit travel websites based on what they expect to find. In a series of online experiments, people are given choices like those they might face when shopping online, and their data about location search and choices are recorded. Participants’ behavior is summarized by describing the typical decision strategies that they use to make these decisions. These decision strategies are compared against optimal mathematical and economic models to identify inefficiencies and errors. Together the descriptive behavioral findings and the optimal analysis combine to make recommendations and innovations to improve online search. This research has the potential to enhance public understanding of online shopping and search behaviors. It can help government agencies, non-profit organizations, and corporations improve the design of their websites to help users find what they are looking for. It can also help consumers search for items online by highlighting common bad search habits that hinder effective searching. Finally, while this research focuses on consumer search, people search for many other things, jobs, opportunities, and services and the findings can be applied to these other situations as well. This project explores how people navigate as they search sequentially for the best outcomes in an environment defined by search costs and differing expectations for outcomes at different locations. The goal of this research is to understand the strategies that people use to decide where to look for good outcomes based on search costs and their expectations (i.e., navigation). Studies compare observed strategies to normative economic models of navigation. This proposal is distinctive because it: (A) examines navigation behavior in the context of sequential search using controlled experiments; (B) compares navigation behaviors against the predictions of an influential optimal search model (Weitzman, 1979); (C) examines cognitive strategies used by people as they navigate in search; (D) develops a novel experimental method that allows comparing navigation behaviors to predictions from normative models and to identify simplifying heuristics; and (E) utilizes agent-based models to understand the adaptive nature of search heuristics. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.