Imagine walking into an ice cream store that sells only one flavor: vanilla. You buy a scoop and walk out perfectly happy with your purchase. Now, imagine walking into a store with 40 flavors. You stand there for a while tasting different ones with mini spoons, ponder for a moment and then finally decide on the double-mint chocolate swirl. You walk out of the store wondering if you made the right decision. Maybe you should have gone with the cookie dough …
Sound familiar? Our society is full of choices, for both minor and major decisions. From jeans to cellphones, apartments to new cars, we are bombarded with a multitude of options every moment of the day. But does this abundance of choice make our lives any easier?
According to psychologist Barry Schwartz, author of “The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less,” there is value in simplifying one’s options. In a Radiolab episode on choice Schwartz states that often “people don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to choose. They can’t face a world in which everything is available.”
In his TED talk on the paradox of choice, Schwartz talks about several problems in having too many options:
1. Having too many choices creates paralysis rather than liberation. When people are given too many options, they won’t choose at all. They don’t want to choose the wrong thing and then be stuck with it forever.
2. Even if we manage to make a choice, we end up less satisfied with that choice. One reason for this is that it is easy to imagine how other choices would have been better. Whenever you choose to do one thing, you are deciding not to do other things. Thinking about what you could have chosen will cause regret, which will subtract from the satisfaction of the choice you made.
3. Having more choices allows you to choose something better, but you feel worse about your choice. With all of these options available, your expectations about your choice will go up. If your double-mint chocolate swirl doesn’t live up to your high expectations, you may end up not liking it very much. You are more likely to be disappointed.
While it may be difficult for us to decrease the amount of choices we have, we can surely change the way that we make decisions. There are two kinds of decision makers: satisficers and maximizers. Satisficers make a decision once their criteria are met and will settle for something that is “good enough.” When they find a perfume that smells good, they get it. Maximizers, however, need to consider every option before they decide. They will sniff every perfume in the store, agonize over which one is the best, then maybe even drive to another store to check out all of the options they would be giving up. While maximizers may end up with the “best” choice, satisficers tend to be happier with theirs and spend less energy and time making their decision. According to Schwartz, maximizers end up full of depression, dissatisfaction and regret.
When I learned the difference between satisficers and maximizers, I realized that I was a little bit of both, as most people are. In the past, I have gone into every store in the mall, tried on every black dress I could find until I found the “perfect” one. Since then, I have loosened up a little. If I find something I like, I buy it and don’t worry about all of the other options out there. Trying on every possible dress would take much more effort than it’s worth. It wastes time that could be spent wearing the dress and having fun, which is the whole point of the dress buying, isn’t it?
