Why choice is good

We have to invent ourselves every day. We can decide whether we want to get married and have kids or not, and at what time we want to do so. As we are so mobile, we can work anytime or decide not to work. However, asking ourselves questions all the time consumes resources that are not available for other tasks.

Barry Schwartz does not agree. In his talk, he explains what might be so good about being in a fishbowl. So there are two negative effects of choice on people: 1 It produces paralysis rather than liberation.

With all the options we have, we postpone decisions over and over again because we really want to make the right decision. Finally, we end up making no decision at all. If the option we took is not perfect, we regret it and imagine what the other option would have been like. We think about the opportunities we missed by not choosing the other options all the time.

This subtracts from the satisfaction with our decision. With all the choices we have, our expectations go up. One of the options has to be perfect. And when we are not happy with the decision we made, we blame ourselves, which makes us feel even worse. My colleagues and I have found that increased choice decreases satisfaction with matters as trivial as ice cream flavors and as significant as jobs. These results challenge what we think we know about human nature and the determinants of well-being.

Both psychology and business have operated on the assumption that the relationship between choice and well-being is straightforward: The more choices people have, the better off they are. In psychology, the benefits of choice have been tied to autonomy and control. In business, the benefits of choice have been tied to the benefits of free markets more generally. Added options make no one worse off, and they are bound to make someone better off. Choice is good for us, but its relationship to satisfaction appears to be more complicated than we had assumed.

There is diminishing marginal utility in having alternatives; each new option subtracts a little from the feeling of well-being, until the marginal benefits of added choice level off. When the number of available options is small, these costs are negligible, but the costs grow with the number of options. Eventually, each new option makes us feel worse off than we did before.

But there is a richer layer of complexity when consumers are in a situation where they have to make a choice. To explore that situation, Berger and his fellow researchers set up a series of experiments offering coupons or token amounts of cash to participants as a way to study how the number and variety of assortment determined what they purchased.

According to Berger, the situation boils down to a showdown between nice-to-have versus need-to-have products. Things that are functional are easier to justify than things that are fun. The paper explores the process of how, in certain circumstances, consumers find it easier to justify less virtuous choices.

For example, Berger says, someone who had just done charity work might find it easier to choose something that is fun even from a large number of choices. If choosing from larger assortments is not more difficult e. We all make many choices in our daily lives — what time to get out of bed, what to wear, what to eat, etc.

Every one of these choices uses up valuable willpower that we can use for more productive activities. And the more options we have to choose from, the more willpower we expend. To avoid this, see if there are areas of your life that you can limit or eliminate choices. Some great examples are to plan your meals in advance, lay out your work or gym clothes the night before and schedule your tasks and priorities in advance.

The more of these choices you can make beforehand, the more willpower you can use to eat healthy, exercise and be more productive. Lemona, Hasse. Baer, Drake. Work Smart, 12 Feb. Vohs, Kathleen D. Baumeister, Brandon J. Schmeichel, Jean M. Twenge, Noelle M. Nelson, and Dianne M. Hollis, Jack F. Gullion, Victor J. Stevens, Phillip J.

Brantley, Lawrence J. Appel, Jamy D.