Rating: 
Summary: Good psychology, accessible to all
Review: Author Schwartz, a distinguished psychological researcher, begins with an apparent contradiction: As contemporary Americans, we have more choices than ever before. However, increasing choices doesn't bring pleasure. In fact, we're more depressed than ever before!
Schwartz devotes the entire book to explaining this paradox. What makes the book worth reading is, first, Schwartz's impeccable references to mainstream psychological research. In particular, Chapter 3 "Deciding and Choosing" summarizes a greal deal of decision theory in straightforward, readable language. Anyone embarking on the study of psychology or consumer behavior would do well to read this chapter with care.
And second, Schwartz explains phenomena that we experience every day: buying airplane tickets, visiting grocery stores, and more.
As a former marketing professor and current career consultant, I beleve Schwartz's theory has more relevance for consumer decisions than for life decisions, such as career choices. True, novelty effects wear off (adaptation) and constraints can actually induce satisfaction. But not everyone faces a dazzling array of career choices, potential mates or even health insurance options.
Even so, nine of Schwartz's ten tips for dealing with choice make sense for just about any situation. "Make choices irreversible" does not make sense for careers. Any job or career can end unexpectedly, and I encourage everyone to keep an eye out for new options. And there's a fine line between learning to love constraints, which Schwartz enocurages, and giving up autonomy.
Chapter 2,"New Choices," is the most frustrating. Some topics covered in a few paragraphs actually deserve a whole book, or at least a whole chapter. In fact entire books have been written about choosing medical care -- not choosing doctors, Schwartz carefully points out, but choosing what the doctor will do. This area is quite troubling; while ordinary patients feel baffled when called upon to choose a treatment, many choices are restrained by technicalities or insurance. In Women's Bodies, Women's Minds, Christiane Northrup writes that insurance will cover pills, for instance, but not massage.
The sections on choosing religion, love and identity are equally frustrating -- like getting one bite of chocolate cake without a complete piece. The endowment effect (discussed briefly in the context of money-back guarantees) would seem to act as a natural brake on choices and the decision to choose. And many people don't feel they have as much choice over how they work as Schwartz would suggest.
This is a book to own and re-read, and implications extend to other arenas. For instance, Schwartz cites evidence to show that explaining a decision changes both the content of the decision and subsequent satisfaction with the decision. How does this finding relate to, say, jury decisions involving life and death?
Finally, Paradox of Choice was published in 2004 -- well after 9/11. Most people I know feel their choices have been constrained a great deal in the last few years. Travel has become more of a hassle and jobs are scarcer. So are we happier? Readers can decide for themselves.
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Rating:
Summary: Choice is good if you choose well.
Review: From the title of Barry Schwartz's "The Paradox of Choice," we know the argument will be that choice perhaps might not always be a good thing. He likens the current situation in America to the small town resident who visits Manhattan for the first time and is overwhelmed by all the activity (choices). Although most of his research involves everything but investing, I was struck by how much his concepts fit perfectly into what would be a good way to approach a successful investing program.
If we put less emphasis on his discussion of whether or not we are better off with more choices (obviously we are), and more on his advice on how to deal with this product of freedom, we get a book that is logically laid out and argues its point well. He first describes the environment in which our choices come at us, then investigates how our inability of deal with them leads to numerous problems - personal, professional, psychological. The most important part of the book is his summation of how we can adapt and learn to live with this new phenomenon.
His solutions, which he says require practice, discipline, and perhaps a new way of thinking, very closely follow the ingredients of good investing:
(1) Choose when to choose - focus on what's important. Be jealous of how you spend your time. Prioritize. Some things just aren't worth the time and effort.
(2) Be a chooser, not a picker - A chooser actively creates directions; pickers take whatever is available. Choosers choose when; pickers select whatever's available. Choosers are people who think actively about the possibilities before making a decision. Choosers reflect on what's important and the consequences of the action. They makes decisions in a way that reflects awareness of what a given choice means about themselves as people. Choosers are thoughtful enough to conclude that perhaps none of the available alternatives are satisfactory. The pickers grab this or that and hope for the best.
(3) Satisfice more and maximize less - (His definition of the two types of people in the world - satisficers and maximizers). "It is maximizers who have expectations which can't be met. It is maximizers who worry most about regret, about missed opportunities...and it is mazimizers who are most disappointed when decisions are not as good as they expected." - (225). The satisficers settle for something that is good enough and don't worry about the possibility that there might be something better. They have criteria and standards. They search until they find an item that fits those standards, then stop. Maximizers are constantly nagged that they haven't chosen the best. Therefore they get less satisfaction out of their choices than do satisficers.
(4) The opportunity costs of opportunity costs - Don't belabor the alternative - beware of getting bogged down in comparisons. If it works, go with it.
(5) Make your decisions nonreversible - Being able to reverse the decision makes you always wanting to do just that. A "the grass is always greener" mentality that leads to failure and unhappiness.
(6) Practice an "Attitude of Gratitude" - Appreciate what is, not what might have been.
(7) Regret less - Realize that one decision isn't going to make or break you. Live with it and move on.
(8) Anticipate adaptation - Don't become dissatisfied with something that was satisfying.
(9) Control expectations - Don't expect too much.
(10) Curtail social comparisons - Don't compare yourself to others.
(11) Learn to love constraints - Set up your own rules and live by them. They help protect you from yourself.
All in all, an excellent course on dealing with an increasingly complex world. Schwartz's next work should be decision making in the investment world. He's already done all the ground work.
Rating:
Summary: Why do we do what we do?
Review: I love this book--it provides a popularized introduction to the newest research into how we deal with the astonishingly rapid rise of available choices. The opening dialogue is sobering--we live in a world of near infinite variety, where something as simple as purchasing a pair of jeans becomes a complex task worthy of examination.
Mr. Schwartz takes the premise that the availability of choices comes with a psychic price--an intriguing notion that we are literally incapable of confronting our own world without instituting various defensive strategies that are only now yielding their secrets to research of the most creative and interesting sort. (The book is worth reading just for its description of some of the more elegant social research strategies.)
The happy and contented among us (who are also the more effective) have, according to Mr. Schwartz, managed to craft a strategy whereby choices are limited in advance by setting boundaries on what is chosen, by what process, and, especially, how much time and effort will go into any decision. Imagine that! A book that advocates self-restraint as a means to a more rewarding life and has science to back it up.
Rating: 
Summary: Decisions, Decisions
Review: I remember reading about ten or twelve years ago of Russian immigrants to America who were overwhelmed by the choices in the average supermarket. Accustomed to a choice of cereal or no cereal, they became paralyzed when confronted with flakes, puffs, pops, sugared or not, oat, wheat, corn, rice, hot or cold, and on and on. Now, according to Barry Schwartz, we are all overwhelmed by too many choices.
No one is immune, he says. Even if someone doesn't care about clothes or restaurants, he might care very much about TV channels or books. And these are just the relatively unimportant kinds of choices. Which cookie or pair of jeans we choose doesn't really matter very much. Which health care plan or which university we choose matters quite a lot. How do different people deal with making decisions?
Schwartz analyzes from every angle how people make choices. He divides people into two groups, Maximizers and Satisficers, to describe how some people try to make the best possible choice out of an increasing number of options, and others just settle for the first choice that meets their standards. (I think he should have held out for a better choice of word than "satisficer.")
I was a bit disappointed that Schwartz dismissed the voluntary simplicity movement so quickly. They have covered this ground and found practical ways of dealing with an overabundance of choice. Instead of exploring their findings, Schwartz picked up a copy of Real Simple magazine, and found it was all about advertising. If he had picked up a copy of The Overspent American by Juliet Schor or Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin instead, he might have found some genuine discussion of simple living rather than Madison Avenue's exploitation of it.
I enjoyed the first part of The Paradox of Choice, about how we choose, but the second half, about regret and depression, seemed to drag. Fortunately, I was able to choose to skim the slow bits and move right to the more interesting conclusion, about how to become more satisfied (or "satisficed") through better decision-making.
Rating: 
Summary: The Paradox of Schwartz
Review: If Mr. Schwartz really believed what he writes, he wouldn't write. There are, by his depiction of things, too many choices. For example, there are far too many books. By writing another book, he aggravates the problem while pretending to solve it. In reality, we filter out most choices and focus on just a few. There are 6+ billion people, so we could marry any one of say, 3 billion. We select from a far smaller number and are not distressed about the billions we never met.
Rating:
Summary: Having Problems choosing books to read chose this one.
Review: In The Paradox of Choice Barry Schwartz provides evidence that we are faced with too many choices on a daily basis. He also presents impressive facts of psychological evidence about how more looking actually makes us less happy with our final decisions. In the beginning of the book it talks about shopping at a grocery store and the number of options there. As the number of options increases, the psychological stakes rise accordingly. This book is helpful in many ways; it shows us how to reduce stress in decision-making. Faced with numerous options in today society Schwartz provided information on leaving your losses behind and focus on the future. He also touched on the topic of regretting, because it's hard to go through life regretting every decision you made because it might not have been the best possible decision. I recommend this book to anyone whose been faced with decision making. After reading The Paradox of Choice I realized the over-whelming amount of choices I came across within the next hour, and how I had a difficult time deciding on what to do. Even with the number options I had to choose from I couldn't pin point on just one. This book is a tool that everyone should use in coping with day-to-day decisions.
Rating:
Summary: Feel better about your decisions...
Review: Schwartz takes an interesting perspective on the decision sciences, exploring not how we could make decisions better, but instead how we can feel better about the decisions we do make. He explains that we live in a world with overwhelming choice, where every activity from buying a box of cereal to choosing our ideal job offers us an almost unlimited set of options. But although these increased choices often make us better off objectively, they don't necessarily make us feel any better. Instead, we get anxious while making the decision and then feel regret once it's made, wondering if we made the "right" choice. Schwartz helps us understand the psychological underpinnings of our anxieties regarding choice, and then offers some simple but useful suggestions on how we can feel better in the world we live in. I really enjoyed this book...and as a "maximizer" I found it very helpful. It's a quick read, so if you're at all intrigued by the title then I'd definitely buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Choose This Book!
Review: The counterintuitive title of this book makes sense by page two, which is only the first of many wonders Schwartz makes happen over the course of this deceptively thin and breezy tome. Paradox explains why we feel like we have less time even as technology continues to promise to make life easier. In a nutshell, it's because we have too many choices and invest great amounts of time and mental capital in making decisions that were far simpler or simply didn't exist in the past. Schwartz start with examples like buying jeans--slim fit? baggy fit? classic fit? relaxed fit? tapered leg? button fly? zip fly?--or choosing phone service--AT&T? MCI? countless baby Bells? myriad cellular providers?--but quickly demonstrates that our choices in every area of life, including where to live, who (or whether) to marry, what to do for a living, and much more have expanded to a degree that we not only spend more time contemplating our choices, but experience far more regret afterward--or sometimes, he argues, choose not to choose at all because thinking about all the choices we must forego in order to choose just one paralyzes us--or makes the option we like the best seem less appealing. Schwartz also notes that the increased array of choices combines with the human imagination in dangerous ways that make us sadder. Life gives us choices with fixed qualities--a good job with potential in a city far from home or a decent job with little potential that's close to home--but we compose our own options by assembling aspects of the real choices into fictional options that we then compare with reality. What a surprise that, as we learn of more and more choices, reality falls further and further short! I can't have it all: live close enough to family and retain the freedom to use distance as an excuse to avoid obligations, live in Minneapolis and also in a house with Brad, work with people I loved working with and also return to Illinois. Yet in times of distress, I (and all of us, Schwartz says) tend to compare the situation that troubles me not with a real alternative but with a fantasy constructed from several conflicting components. This is not a useful way to deal with whatever it is that troubles me, or any of us. Fortunately, Schwartz closes the book by offering useful suggestions for understanding the problems unlimited choices pose in our society and dealing with them in our own lives. His book isn't perfect--it gets a bit redundant at times--but it's a fascinating take on a topic that plays a bigger role in modern life than many of us realize.
Rating:
Summary: An antidote to the spoiled child we have all become
Review: This book is a fast paced read, that starts out with a blizzard of examples concerning the bounty that modern society enjoys. Despite that we live with this astounding abundance of material riches, we still feel unfulfilled.
The author then delves into the psychology behind why we feel discontent. Some interesting concepts are introduced. I found that the idea of adaptation, whereby we soon take for granted what was a highly desired entity before we possessed it, and the way to counteract it, particularly fascinating. His discussion of satisficers and maximizers resonated with me, too. Although on this type of personality difference, I don't think the author could offer an easy remedy. It's hard to start accepting something that's just 'good enough', when your the kind of person that prides yourself on knowing all about the very best things. But the author succeeds in developing a new perspective for us. Then it's up to us individually to build on that perspective and figure out what it would take to make each of ours life more meaningful. The book is enlightening and entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: how choices overwhelm us
Review: This book was excellent in 2 ways: first, the style was relaxing, filled with many common situations we can all relate to. (After all...struggling with choices can be as difficult in a supermarket as it is on Wall Street if we let it be.) Second, Schwartz gives sound insight as to how to turn the corner, how to know when not to overanalyse. We learn over time how to make sound decisions, but sometimes we apply too much scrutiny to things that are not so important. We think that trying harder will always lead to something better, so if I think about this decision JUST A LITTLE BIT LONGER then more information will present itself and I'll be glad I waited. This makes sense on paper, but in practice it leads to procrastination, doubt and regret. (And we wake up 6 months later having made no move, no decision, and wondering why the "new information" never seemed to appear). Finally, Schwartz presents a framework--not a formula that WILL work and WILL bring success, but a way of looking at decisions that you can apply to even the most mundane decisions you have to make. This is refreshing; so many books have you saying, "that's true" all the way through the book, but in the end offer no solutions, no realistic way to incorporate those ideas into everyday life. The Paradox of Choice is the exception, for it shows how a change in paradigm can lead to totally different results. One great example was in buying food: an example was given where 24 types of jam were for sale and how 6 of them were open for customers to sample. Meanwhile, on the other side of the same store, the same 24 jams were presented with all 24 available to sample. The results? The display with only 6 open outsold the other by 30%--which on paper makes no sense because you'd think that people would say, "how do I know what I like unless I test them ALL?" But this isn't how it really works, for how many of us have the time and energy to stand at a display for half an hour to make a decision as minor as buying one jar of jam? We don't "have time" to make the decision, hence we make none. Whereas when only 6 are open, I feel I can put 5 minutes into it and make a complete decision. (While you could argue that we could do that all along, that we could test any 6 of the open 24 and stop, most of us don't have the discipline to do that.) This is the paradox he writes of: while it seems like having a greater selection creates more freedom, what it really does is give us more to weigh, more to secondguess later. You can think of tons of examples--cell phone plans, laptops, insurance policies. We're afraid to jump in and commit because with our luck the perfect choice will present itself 2 months from now. Schwartz shows us that learning how to make decisions we can live with(and not dwell on afterwards) with can give us the peace of mind we're all so diligently looking for.
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