The Paradox of Choice

The Paradox of Choice

“After millions of years of survival based on simple distinctions, it may simply be that we are biologically unprepared for the number of choices we face in the modern world” Schwartz, 2004

It’s no secret that as humans we like to exercise our freedom of choice. Having choice is important as it helps us to express our identity and allows us to consume what we like according to our personal preferences. Whether it’s selecting what to wear, deciding what television show to watch, or choosing what to do over the weekend – we strive to be authors of our own destiny.

On the flip side, I’m sure you can recall a time when you had too many choices, so many, in fact, that it was almost debilitating. Perhaps you were unsure of what topping to get on your pizza? Or maybe you were so overwhelmed by choice of ice cream flavours that you defaulted to simply vanilla? 

Known as the “choice paradox”, this fear of making the ‘wrong choice’ or missing out on the ‘better option’ – is the brain’s response to having too many choices.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz's estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

The Paradox of Choice, turned traditional thinking about wealth, consumerism and modern life on its head. Rather than increasing our sense of well-being, Schwartz says that too many choices in life can cause paralysis as well as increasing levels of anxiety, depression, and wasted time.

Schwartz makes the point that the choice isn’t always a good thing and that at some point too many choices is a bad as no choice at all. His theory is more involved than that but that idea in particular is intriguing.

To illustrate, Schwartz makes the distinction between two types of people, maximizers, – who are not happy until they have obtained the best, and satisficers, who tend to settle for what’s ‘good enough’. Studies show that maximizers are less happy, less optimistic, and have lower self-esteem than satisficers.

Maximizers are people who given a choice, will exhaustively search all the options seeking all possible information, in order to make the best possible choice. This behaviour generally consumes a lot of time, and often leads to nagging doubts, perhaps where no clear winner emerged. ‘satisficers are those who settle for a choice that is good enough for them. These people are generally happier with their choice and spend less time choosing, leaving  them to free to enjoy other things.

How We Become Less Satisfied

In the Paradox of Choice, Schwartz explains the steps in the process that make us less satisfied.

1.     You imagine you could have made a better choice.

2.     You regret the decision, thinking it’s not perfect.

3.     You imagine what you didn’t choose is better than what you did choose.

4.     Your expectations escalate.

5.     You have less satisfaction with the results even with good results.

6.     It’s no longer possible for you to experience ple

Maximizing and Satisficing

 The freedom of choice has become deeply ingrained in our social fabric. For decades, psychological researchers have advocated the benefits of providing choice: it enhances feelings of autonomy and freedom (Roets, Schwartz, & Guan, 2012), promotes one‘s sense of personal control (Rotter, 1996; Taylor, 1989; Taylor & Brown, 1988), and increases feelings of intrinsic motivation (deCharms, 1968; Deci, 1981; Deci & Ryan, 1985). More recently, however, the decision-making literature has undergone a shift in perspective: increased choice may actually be detrimental and unappealing for some decision-makers. Indeed, studies conducted by Iyengar and Lepper (1999, 2000) found that those provided with fewer options in a decision-making task derived greater satisfaction from their decision outcomes.

Rational choice theory is a well-established tenet in economics that rests on the assumption that people are rational agents. Armed with complete information about their choices, rational individuals will always choose the option that maximizes their utility. These ―maximizers‖ approach decision-making with the goal of achieving the best possible decision outcome. In order to accomplish this, they are willing to engage in an exhaustive search of all possible options, investing substantial time and effort in the decision process (Iyengar, Wells, & Schwartz, 2006). However, behavioral economists contend that the assumption of ―complete information‖ in decision-making is unrealistic and that human beings often violate the principles of rational choice theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979, 1984).

Rational-choice theory attempts to explain human choice by assuming we are rational choosers, have well ordered preferences, and have information on costs and benefits. It also assumes we compare options on the basis of preference, value or utility. Additionally, the theory says that rational choosers should always be able to express their preferences.

A rational decision maker, therefore, will look at all the options, choose the one that brings the most utility, and understand why the choice was made. But in economic theory, there hasn’t been enough study understanding from where our preferences come. Preferences are complicated because it includes human biases as well as culture.

More than half a century ago, Herbert Simon (1955, 1956) introduced a theory that addressed the limitations of human cognition as well as environmental complexities in the decision-making process. He argued that the goal of utility maximization, as stipulated by rational choice theory, is nearly impossible to achieve in real life. Rather than maximize, people often ―satisfice‖ when making decisions.

Satisficers have an internal threshold of acceptability against which they evaluate options, and will choose a decision outcome when it crosses this threshold. Therefore, satisficers are content to settle for a ―good enough‖ option—not necessarily the very best outcome in all respects.

More recently, Schwartz and his colleagues (2002) characterized this tendency to maximize or satisfice into an individual, psychological trait. They developed a 13-item Maximization Scale in order to assess an individual‘s tendency to seek optimality in decision-making, testing facets related to alternative search, decision difficulty, and high standards (Roets et al., 2012). Compared to satisfiers, maximizing individuals are more likely to experience lower levels of happiness, life satisfaction, optimism, and self-esteem.

In addition, maximizing tendencies were shown to have significant, positive correlations with regret, perfectionism, and depression (Schwartz et al., 2002). Despite their high-effort decision-making process, maximizers are less satisfied with their final decision outcomes than satisfiers.

The negative affect experienced by maximizers can be attributed to the presence and proliferation of choices in the decision-making process. In order to determine their optimal decision outcome, maximizers feel compelled to examine each and every alternative available, which is often infeasible in reality due to the limitations in human cognition (Roets et al., 2012). For maximizers, the excess of options becomes problematic for several reasons. First, it grows increasingly difficult to collect and process the information necessary to construct an informed, complete set of options.

Second, choice proliferation makes it more difficult to correctly identify the ―best‖ outcome on an objective basis. This forces maximizers to rely on external sources of information to evaluate their options (Iyengar et al., 2006). In fact, maximizing individuals are more likely to engage in upward social comparisons in order to gauge the optimality of their decisions. This encourages counterproductive thinking about ―what might have been‖, which perpetuates feelings of regret (Schwartz et al., 2002).

Third, as the number of available choices increase, a maximizer‘s standards of an acceptable outcome inflates correspondingly. Given the practical constraints on conducting an exhaustive search, a maximizer‘s high expectations inevitably lead to disappointment and dissatisfaction with his final decision.

Fourth, maximizers may be more likely to attribute failures or poor decisions to personal shortcomings rather than situational limitations and environmental complexities. This depressogenic way of thinking causes maximizing individuals to have lower self-esteem than their satisficing counterparts (Schwartz et al., 2002; Polman, 2010).

Finally, more choices imply a higher probability that an individual will make a non-optimal decision. This can indirectly undermine the satisfaction a maximizer derives from his actual choice (Schwartz et al., 2002; Polman, 2010). As Roets et al. argue, ―there is always the possibility that there is a better option ‗out there‘, and failing to find it means a failure to optimize personal satisfaction‖ (Roets et al., 2012).

Most recently, Sparks and her colleagues (2012) found that maximizers are more reluctant to commit to their choices. Their reticence to commit robs them of critical, post-decision psychological processes, such as dissonance reduction and rationalization (Sparks, Ehrlinger, & Eibach, 2012). Ultimately, this leaves maximizing individuals feeling less satisfied with their decision outcomes. The presence of choice contributes to the heightened feelings of regret, unrealistic expectations, and high opportunity costs suffered by maximizers.

Satisficers, on the other hand, undergo a fundamentally different, decision-making process. With modest standards for what constitutes an acceptable decision outcome, a satisficing individual does not require a complete information set when making his decisions. Several options may fall within a satisficer‘s threshold for acceptability, providing greater flexibility and latitude in achieving a desired decision outcome. As soon as he encounters a ―good enough‖ option, the satisficer can easily ignore the addition of new choices to the decision domain. Therefore, a satisficer is less likely to experience regret even if a better option presents itself after a decision has already been made (Schwartz et al., 2002).

Given all this, are maximizers rewarded for their troubles by achieving better decision outcomes? Does their high-effort decision-making process result in better decision quality? Iyengar et al. (2006) found that recent college graduates with high maximizing tendencies accepted jobs that paid 20% higher starting salaries than their satisficing peers. Despite higher salaries, however, these maximizing students were less satisfied with the jobs they obtained. They also experienced more negative affect both during and after the job search process (Iyengar et al., 2006). When compared to satisficers, it appears that maximizing individuals generally achieve better outcomes objectively, but perceive them to be worse subjectively for the reasons discussed above (Schwartz et al., 2002; Iyengar et al., 2006).

However, this view has been openly debated in the decision-making literature. Parker, Bruine de Bruin, and Fischhoff (2007) found that self-reported maximizers are more likely to use maladaptive decision-making styles. A tendency to maximize results in less behavioral coping, greater dependence on others for information, increased interpersonal comparisons, avoidance of decision-making in order to search for more information, and more acute feelings of regret (Parker et al., 2007). These findings were consistent with those of Bruine de Bruin et al. (2007): individuals who scored highly on Schwartz‘s Maximization Scale were poorer decision makers when measured by the Decision-Making Competence survey and self-reported Decision Outcomes Inventory (Bruine de Bruin, Parker, & Fischhoff, 2007).

Contrary to intuition, maximizers are also more likely to engage in spontaneous decision-making (Parker et al., 2007). Overall, satisficing individuals achieved better decision outcomes (cf. Iyengar et al., 2006).

In Barry Schwartz’s famous Ted Talk on choice, he suggests that offering too much choice may result in 3 negative side effects:

          1. Analysis Paralysis: When there are too many options, customers will become paralysed and instead purchase nothing. Whirlpool recently tested this via an email marketing campaign. By significantly reducing the number of products advertised, Whirlpool saw engagement with their advertisement rise by a whopping 42%.

          2. Buyers’ remorse: After browsing for hours and then finally settling on a product, many customers will experience a sudden pang of guilt. This is a reflection of them second-guessing whether they’ve made the right choice.

          3. Decision fatigue: Put simply, we each have the energy to make a finite number of decisions each day. Once we’ve reached that limit, our ability to make smart decisions (or any decision at all) is severely depleted.

Barry Schwarz explores this shortcoming as well as gives us evidence-based advice on how we can make wiser decisions in his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less . He lays out a compelling case for becoming a Satisfier (one who makes a decision when their criteria is met) over a Maximizers (one who must make the best choice).  With the overload of options we have in modern times, we can end up more spending an enormous amount of time researching options and making the subsequent choices. Schwartz makes a compelling argument on why Satisficers tend to be happier than Maximizers. Maximizers must spend loads of time and energy to reach a decision, and in the end, they are often anxious about those choices and much more likely to ruminate. As a Satisfier, you can still have high standards, but you make the choice when your criteria is met.

Most of us in business have heard the advice by Schwarz and many that we should ignore sunk costs, which are historical and no longer have any bearing on the go-forward situation. In the case of opportunity costs, alternatives are still relevant, but Schwarz advises they should be considered because it’s very difficult to adequately weigh whether our front-running choice is indeed good without knowing the alternatives. He cautions we should limit the set of possibilities considered among opportunity costs to reduce negative psychological impact. 

Examples of other advisable strategies from The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less  include 1) choosing when to choose (narrow down choices by constraining when we choose, 2) deciding not to choose at all (when the decision is not important), 3) increasing the frequency of making a choice when you find an option that is good enough (“satisficing”), and 4) having second-order decisions (preset choices in certain situations).

Eg- The 'paradox of choice' could explain why you're still single - here's what it means

·       Dating apps mean we are given nearly endless choices of who we can date.

·       While this should make connections easier, it also makes us more picky.

·       This is because of the "paradox of choice" that makes us believe the grass is always greener on the other side.

·       By always looking for something better, you might miss the opportunity right in front of your eyes.

If you're single, don't worry. Science has shown it's actually better for you in a number of ways.

But if you're spending this Valentine's Day crying over the fact nobody wants to be in a relationship with you, there's a psychological reason that might help explain why.

It's called "the paradox of choice," and it essentially means that while we consider variety as a good thing, at the same time, it makes our decisions more challenging.

For example, you may have met someone on on Tinder, and the first date went really well. You probably want to see them again, but you can't help noticing their tiny flaws. You know your online profile is sitting there on your phone, and you just can't shake the feeling there could be someone else on the dating app that would be an even better fit for you.

"The Paradox of Choice," Barry Schwartz describes this way of thinking as "maximising."

"Maximizers treat relationships like clothing," he writes. "I expect to try a lot on before finding the perfect fit. For a maximizer, somewhere out there is the perfect lover, the perfect friends. Even though there is nothing wrong with the current relationship, who knows what's possible if you keep your eyes open."

The opposite of maximisers are "satisficers," who have the ability to know a good thing when they see it, without obsessing over "what ifs."

It's not the same as settling for a bad option, because satisficing also means having high standards. But it does also mean ignoring the temptation of finding out if the grass really is greener on the other side.

In theory, it makes sense. If you're always holding out for something better, chances are you'll end up with nothing. That, or you'll realise you left all your good options in the cold, and you'll end up with someone who's wrong for you. By that logic, satisficers are more likely to end up happy.

In a blog post about this for Psychology Today, Jen Kim writes about how in modern dating life, we no longer have the feeling of scarcity, as there are always so many options at our fingertips. This doesn't just make us picky, but arguably unreasonably so.

"How quickly have we thumbed left simply because the face peering back at us had an eyebrow hair out of place or because the guy seemed short even though you could only see his head?" she writes. "How many amazing potential mates have we missed out on because we were convinced the next profile would be better?"

In the end, attraction is about more than just a photo. It's more than just an instant spark on a first date, or a Valentine's Day card.

Ultimately, while dating apps bring us closer to people we might not otherwise have met, the issues they cause paradoxically make it even more difficult to make a connection.

To avoid falling in the maximising trap, if you think you've met someone and it could be something good, try and give it a fair chance. Otherwise you might be holding out for a fairytale that could never happen.

In Barry Schwartz's seminal book, "The Paradox of Choice," we learn that while choice is a vital part of autonomy and fundamental to our well-being, too much choice has a cost, and our obsession with it contributes to bad decisions, anxiety, stress, dissatisfaction, paralysis, and even depression.

From choosing the best tacos to finding the ideal mate, today's perils of choice come from every direction. Almost every part of daily life requires us to choose, compelling many to waste a ton of time and energy on research for fear that the wrong decision might get made.

Here are some of the ways too many options mess with us, according to psychological research:
Whenever you choose one thing, you're also not choosing other things that could be just as good

One of the problems with having too many options before us is that each one comes with its trade-offs, Schwartz says, and trade-offs have psychological consequences.

When there are lots of alternatives to consider, it's easy to imagine the attractive features of the alternatives you reject.

"The necessity of making trade-offs alters how we feel about the decisions we face; more important, it affects the level of satisfaction we experience from the decisions we ultimately make," he writes.

Greater choice makes us fantasize about a better option out there

When there are multiple alternatives, Schwartz says, it's also easy for us to imagine alternatives that don't actually exist and are a combination of the attractive features of the alternatives that do exist. We've essentially created greater expectations than we could possibly meet.

"To the extent that we engage our imaginations in this way, we will be even less satisfied with the alternative we end up choosing," he writes. Greater variety in this way actually makes us feel worse off.

More options lead to greater regret

Even if you've made a good decision, Schwartz says, when your choice isn't perfect, knowing there were alternatives out there makes it easy to imagine you could have made a better choice.

This leads you to regret the decision you made, which leads to dissatisfaction, even if it was a good decision.

Too many options can lead us to make bad decisions

The emotional cost of potential trade-offs also interferes with the quality of decisions we make, Schwartz says. When we feel bad about choosing, we begin to lose focus and instead of examining all aspects of a decision, we home in on a couple of aspects, some that might not be that important.

Our negative emotions associated with having to choose can also distract us from the decision itself, Schwartz says, which impairs our decision-making abilities.

People don't like feeling bad about their decisions, which can lead to paralysis of action

People tend to resist making decisions when there are so many trade-offs, which can lead to postponing or avoiding making the decision, Schwartz says.

This may not be so serious when you're choosing which new smartphone to buy or what to eat for lunch, but it can have detrimental affects on your future, like when choosing which retirement savings plan to settle on.

The conflict that comes from too many choices can also cause paralysis

Scwartz points to numerous studies that found when there are two options with a clear winner, most people made a decision — but when people are presented with options involving trade-offs that create conflict, all choices begin to look unappealing, and people are less likely to make a decision.

An abundance of choices leaves less time to make the right decision

"Nobody has the time or cognitive resources to be completely thorough and accurate with every decision, and as more decisions are required and more options are available, the challenge of doing the decision making correctly becomes ever more difficult to meet," Schwartz writes.

And choosing eats up our time, a precious commodity we often have so little of

Schwartz says preparing for, making, reevaluating, and perhaps regretting the vastly greater number of choices we have today eats up one of our most valuable resources: time.

"Time spent dealing with choice is time taken away from being a good friend, a good spouse, a good parent, and a good congregant," he says.

People who always want the best option are often more depressed than people who settle

In Schwartz's study of people who always look for the best option, whom he calls maximizers, compared with people who are OK settling for something that's good enough, whom he calls satisficers, he found maximizers experienced less satisfaction with life, were less happy, were less optimistic, and were more depressed than satisficers.

While Schwartz notes that the study finding does not mean being a maximizer causes unhappiness, he personally believes that being a maximizer plays a causal role in people's unhappiness.

Choosing between too many options can cause decision fatigue, which can lead to worse decisions down the road

Some psychologists believe that making a number of small decisions like what to wear and what to eat wears out your brain and saps the mental power that you could be using for more pressing matters, which is often referred to as decision fatigue.

They posit that your pool of decision-making energy is limited, and eventually, as your willpower depletes with each new decision you make, you're more likely to either act impulsively or do nothing.

It's why the likes of President Barack Obama and Steve Jobs limited their clothing options — making too many trivial decisions would waste their ability to make other, more pressing decisions down the road.

As Obama explained during a 2012 interview with Vanity Fair when he revealed why he only wears gray or blue suits:

I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.

These days, the fear of missing out extends well beyond what we should buy or eat

"It seems to me that the most striking trend is the appearance of social media,"Schwartz told Pacific Mag last year. "My suspicion is that it and dating sites have created just the thing I talk about in connection with consumer goods: Nobody's good enough and you're always worried you're missing out."

"Nobody makes plans because something better might turn up, and the result is that nobody ever does anything," Schwartz says.

We have all been there: standing in aisle five of the supermarket trying to decide which jar of mustard to buy. Do we go organic, or for the brand with whole mustard seeds? Or do we simply pick the one in the brightest yellow bottle?

In a fascinating talk at TEDxStanford, “Sometimes it’s good to give up the driver’s seat,” marketing professor Baba Shiv reveals that discomfort over making choices extends into medical decisions. Five years ago, Shiv’s wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.

“The most harrowing and agonizing part of the whole experience was that we were making decision after decision,” Shiv shares in his talk. “The wisdom of the ages is that when it comes to decisions of importance, it’s best to be in charge. But are there contexts where we’re far better off taking the passenger seat and having someone else drive?”

Shiv decided to test the theory on undergraduate students about to solve word puzzles. While one set of students was asked to chose between two teas — caffeinated or relaxing chamomile — the other group was told by the researchers which of the teas to drink. In the end, the students assigned a tea solved more puzzles than those who were given a choice. Shiv hypothesized that this is because making the choice allows a person to have doubt about their decision when faced with the prospect of immediate feedback.

Shiv’s thoughts on choice are counterintuitive. But his work is part of a growing body of research on choice. Below, more studies — many from TED speakers — which suggest that having a variety of options isn’t always what we need.

In a jam
TED speaker Sheena Iyengar, a professor at Columbia University, performed a classic experiment in the realm of choice studies in 1995. In the study — which she describes in her TEDTalk “How to Make Choosing Easier” — Iyengar presented shoppers in a gourmet market with a display of jams. At times, the display showed 24 varieties. At others, it included only six. Iyengar found that, yes, 60 percent of customers found themselves pulled to the large display while only 40 percent stopped at the small one. But with 24 possible options, consumers questioned themselves and only 3% made a jam purchase. At the small display, nearly a third of consumers who stopped by bought a jar of jam.

The pasta problem
Malcolm Gladwell also thinks extensively about choice, and in his riveting TEDTalk “Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce,” he describes a visionary who anticipated Iyengar’s findings more than a decade before they were made. Howard Moskowitz, a psychophysicist turned market researcher, was asked by Prego spaghetti sauce in the early ‘80s to help them revise their product line. And thus Moskowitz headed out on the road with 45 pasta sauces, asking thousands of Americans to rate each one. But, using knowledge gleaned from working for brands like Pepsi and Vlassic Pickles, Moskowitz recommended that — rather than offering.

References

o   TED Talk by Barry Schwartz on The Paradox of Choice

o   https://brainfodder.org/paradox-of-choice/

o   https://www.businessinsider.in/11-ways-having-too-many-options-is-screwing-us-up/articleshow/55710044.cms

o   https://blog.ted.com/does-having-choice-make-us-happy-6-studies-that-suggest-it-doesnt-always/

o   https://www.businessinsider.in/The-paradox-of-choice-could-explain-why-youre-still-single-heres-what-it-means/articleshow/62917766.cms

o   Starry Peng (2013), Maximizing and Satisficing in Decision-Making Dyads, University of Pennsylvania