11/18/2023 0 Comments Ted talks barry schwartz choiceThe more options we have to choose from, the more confident we feel that, somewhere in the bunch, we’ll be able to find something that fits our preferences exactly. Research has shown that this mechanism, known as “expectation-disconfirmation,” is a big driver of choice overload. The more choices, the higher our expectationsĪlexander Pope once said, “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” As we have all experienced at some point, great expectations can be toxic to our actual experience of the world: the higher we have set the bar going into something, the easier it is for us to be let down when reality doesn’t measure up. Research has also shown that when the decision is made more difficult-for example, by adding time constraints or choosing products that differ from each other on many different variables that need to be evaluated-people experience greater choice overload. When we don’t have the cognitive resources to weigh all of our options, we can end up simply abandoning the effort of making a choice. But in actuality, more choices just means more decisions that we have to make, and making decisions uses up mental energy-of which we only have a limited supply. This finding is totally counterintuitive: most people would expect that, with a larger array of jams available to them, there would be a higher chance that customers would find an option they liked and would want to return to buy something. In the end, 30% of customers who visited the smaller booth came back to buy some jam, compared to a meager 3% of customers who saw the booth with the larger selection. The coupons were marked with code numbers so that the researchers would know which customers had cashed them in. They were then given a coupon, valid for one week, that entitled them to a small discount on the jam. Customers were allowed to taste as many jams as they wanted. On some days, they displayed a limited selection of 6 flavors on others, they put out a much more extensive assortment of 24 flavors. In a study on the effects of choice on motivation, researchers set up a jam tasting booth at an upscale grocery store. Not only does this make the experience feel more draining but it also makes us more likely to choose nothing-to put off making a decision entirely, because we feel so overwhelmed. The effects of this bias go beyond complicating our decision-making process: it also has a big impact on our affective (emotional) experience, decreasing our satisfaction with the choices we make and increasing the likelihood that we will regret those choices.Ĭhoice overload gets its name from the paralyzing effect it has on our decision-making processes: the more variety there is, the harder it becomes for us to choose. As psychologist Barry Schwartz has argued, our approach to life is so rooted in this individualist ethos that we struggle to see how choice overload is harming us. But the empirical evidence on choice overload contradicts this idea: in many cases (though not universally), more variety makes our lives harder and less pleasant. There is a widespread assumption that more choice equals more freedom, and more freedom is always, unambiguously, a good thing. A lot has changed: industrial and technological advancements have made it possible to manufacture more and more products, and to import others to regions they never would have reached before we have shifted to a free market economic system, where alternatives proliferate and compete with one another and, at least in the Western world, we have evolved culturally to prize individual freedom and autonomy over nearly everything else. Life in the modern world couldn’t be more different. In a harsh and unforgiving environment, being choosy about what kind of foods you would eat, or how you dressed, could result in you winding up dead. Up until very recently in human history, most people’s paths in life were more or less predetermined: few individuals had much say in what job they would have as an adult, or whether or not they would get married, or whether or not they would have children. Having lots of choices is one of the biggest things that separates our modern existence from the lives of our ancestors.
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