Tinder is an online dating app that is used to find matches between individuals in the same dating pool. In economics these type of systems are known as a matching markets, because they help to match people with the person they wish to meet. Tinder differs from other dating apps because rather than pairing people based off of stated values or interests that they say they want or don’t want in a partner it uses a simple system of just letting people select matches in their area. This is an advantage because things we say about our own preferences are often biased or different from our actions.

This is shown in our tendency of choosing partners of the same race over different races, though most people say they have no preference. In economics this is called the difference between our stated preference and our revealed preferences. On Tinder, since you just select people you desire to date, your matches are more accurate. Many criticize the app's set up as it forces quick selection and therefore individuals will make possibly negative decisions. In Malcomb Gladwell’s book "Blink," and Daniel Kahneman’s book "Thinking, Fast and Slow," it is stated that most of our decisions are made by the part of our brain that is in charge of quick subconscious decisions by consciously thinking we only justify our initial decisions, or change our choices to ones we are often less happy with.

You can achieve a more positive experience through a little knowledge of game theory and behavioral economics. Game theory is a subfield within economics that is used to understand human behavior in situations by looking at the rules similar to how you played board games as a kid. There exists two types of rules explicit, those written down, and implicit, those that are formed by norms. Behavioral economics is the analysis decision using psychological insight.

With that explanation out of the way let’s look at the game of Tinder. We must define the app itself and your desired end state. Tinder has four parts: profile creation, matching, conversations and meeting. In the photos of your profile certain types of pictures perform better than others.

Men looking away from the camera typically does better than looking towards it, while women are found more attractive when looking at the camera. The use of a “sexy” picture does produce a slight bump, but among males this bump diminishes over time and among women this increases with age. People cans use filters, snapchat effects and angling can be used to adjust appearance, but can produce adverse effects upon meeting. In the 400 words of your about me, you should convey who you are and what you are looking for in a match.

The most ignored portion of your profile is your match setting which play an important role in your matches, but not at all in the way you might think. One of the maxims of behavioral economics is that defaults settings are powerful. On age the default is ten years older and younger than you. Most people adjust this number, to a smaller range, but because you saw the first number it forms what is called an anchor point, a point you gravitate towards. By decreasing this range further it will reflect your real preferences. The default distance is 50 miles which most people leave alone due to not having a preference. These two determine who you see and vice versa.

In matching one of the explicit rules of Tinder is that you get 100 likes and one super like every twelve hours. This gives each like an opportunity cost, or cost due to possible options being available that you can't pick. This causes each like to be more accurate to your wants rather than just clogging up your match feed. So who should you like to increase the likelihood of matching. Age criteria is used for both you and your potential match when filtering results shown but the wider the age gap between you and them means an increased age tolerance on both profiles. This means both your feeds include all people in those age ranges, thus a lower probability of you getting seen by that person.With distance, the people in your feed are only filtered by your settings. The lower the distance between you and a potential match, the greater the probability you are in their distance tolerance, if theirs is different than the default of 50.

It also features the same problem as age with the larger the distance, the more people in their feed. The least known criteria of being shown profiles is the distance between your ELO scores, or desirability. This a numerical value given to you by who swipes left or right on your profile. It is based on the chess ranking system, and a modified version is also used by FiveThirtyEight to rank and predict outcomes of NFL and NBA games. One of the factors for an ELO score to be possible people have to naturally give likes to profiles within a Pareto Distribution. This means that 20 percent of the most “desirable” profiles receive 80 percent of the likes while the other 80 percent only gets 20 percent of the likes. Knowing this tendencies, you’re more likely to find a match.

I think you should like who you find desirable, but an indexed approach will likely improve your Tinder experience. For example, using 30 percent of your likes in the 80 percent ELO score, 65 percent without making any changes and the last 5 percent saved for top 20 percent. Your final like, the "super like" is the most underutilized function. It allows you to like, but also communicate with that person, no matter what. At the very least, it gives you 101 likes, so it should be used every time you use Tinder. If you receive a super like you should give it serious consideration, a guaranteed match today versus a 5 percent chance of a match at some point in the future is the better choice. For chatting and meeting you are on your own.

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