Study on search behavior of an extended secretary problem

We study sequential search behavior in a generalized “secretary problem” in which a single object is to be selected from a set of n alternatives. By nature, Alternatives are inspected in a random order, one at a time, and only the rank order of the current alternative relative to the ones that have already been observed can be ascertained. The goal of decision-maker (DM) was maximizing the probability of targeting the best and some post studies indicated DM often under-search in the observation. We compared the real search with the optimal search through controlled laboratory experiment. The results indicated that DM often over-search, not under-search, in repeated selecting context. In other words, DM often gets less gain with more pay on search. The behavioral decision rule that we propose provides possible account for the observed pattern of the behavioral regularities.