The Choices of Others: An Experiment on Social Search

When faced with unfamiliar options, people often rely on the choices of others. We examine how this reliance affects search decisions through a laboratory experiment. Participants choose between two options whose value can only be discovered through costly sequential searches. Some search in isolation; others first observe the final choice, but not the search process, of a peer. This form of social information improves efficiency, yet behavior systematically departs from theory. When selecting which option to sample first, imitation of the peer’s choice is frequent but not universal; moreover, participants often deviate from the optimal stopping rule, with both under and over-search observed. We introduce treatments that allow participants to choose whom to observe and access signals about the reliability of their peers: these interventions increase imitation and improve welfare. Our findings underscore the role of institutional design in facilitating social search, with implications for platform architecture and information diffusion.