The Paradox of Choice : Why More Is Less

Rating:
Summary: Do we really know what we are doing?
Review: This is a fascinating discussion of the implication of research in various fields, summarized for the non-scientific reader. We live in a society of economic competition which assumes if you give people enough choice, then competition between our various options will result in the "best" surviving in the market--not just the best products, but the best schools, careers, political parties, etc. Our society also assumes that the more options we have to select from, the more satisfied we will be. Schwartz brings all these assumptions into question. First of all, many of us are on choice overload. Do we really want to invest all the time and anxiety that many of us spend to come away with the *best* pair of shoes or the *best* lampshade? Will we really be happier as a result? Furthermore, the way we really make our selections is not nearly as logical as most of us would like to think. I came away thinking that life is too short to spend it making up my mind.

Rating:
Summary: An insightful framework in how we make decisions.
Review: This is an excellent book. The author makes some pretty earth shaking assertions, but being a scientist he supports them well with studies he either performed himself or by referring to the ones of other scientists. The book is very easy and fun to read. By reading it, you will learn much about yourself, your friends, society and business in general.

The author's framework includes several dimensions. The first one is that good feelings about good decisions weight much less on our psyche than negative ones associated with bad decisions. Thus, people are more sensitive to losses than gains. Let's say you bought a good soap and a bad shampoo. You would think you could call it even; but apparently most of us can't. We are a lot more bummed out about the bad shampoo than we are excited about the good soap.

The second dimension is the number of choices. The more choices we have, the more likely we are to make a poor choice, and the more aggravated we will get about that poor choice [because there were so many more superior alternatives]. Meanwhile, if we do make a good choice our satisfaction level will not increase as a result of having more choices. The author indicates that good feelings satiate; meanwhile bad feelings escalate. Thus, the number of choice compounds the power of the negative (but not the positive) feelings.

The third dimension is the disaggregation of the population into two separate types of shoppers: the Maximizers and the Satisficers. The Maximizers strive to always make the best choice for every single purchase they make. As a result, they do a lot of research sometimes for the most trivial purchase. They do research before and after a purchase. Thus, they keep on benchmarking their purchases to all the other alternatives they had. This mentality inevitably leads the Maximizers to eventually be dissatisfied with their purchases and question their own decision-making ability. This leads them to doing more research, more comparison, leading to more purchase dissatisfaction. It is a vicious cycle they may not be able to get out of. As you can imagine, the Satisficers are just the opposite. They are more casual about their purchasing. They do a lot less research before making a purchase. And, they certainly do none after making a purchase. For them, most products are essentially equivalent commodities providing the same utility with no implication on their customer satisfaction. Obviously, most of us are somewhat between these two extremes. But, the author discloses an easy test whereby we can measure our tendencies towards being more like a Maximizer or a Satisficer.

The fourth dimension is how the Maximizers and Satisficers handle life and how satisfied are they with it. As you can imagine, Maximizers make better purchases than Satisficers. Information and research do contribute to superior choices. But, paradoxically the Maximizers enjoy their purchases much less than the Satisficers. This has profound implications across many human endeavors as "purchase" is just a proxy for any serious decision we are faced with. The author did some research on MBA students. He found that the Maximizers got job offers that were nearly 20% higher than the Satisficers. Yet, they were much less satisfied with these offers than the Satisficers. Given the Maximizers tendency to continuously benchmark, they probably were also much more likely to change jobs more frequently than the Satisficers. The author also indicated there is a high correlation between Maximizer and depression.

Somehow, the author's work contradicts economic theory. Economists state that the more competition you have the better; as consumers will have more choices at a lower price. But, the author's work suggests there is a diminishing return associated with increasing choices that kicks in way sooner than economists think. Do we really need 85 different toothpastes and soaps?

The author discloses many more contrarian insights that really get you thinking about who you are. If you like this book, you will also like "The Cost of Living" he wrote in 1994, a prescient book on how most aspects of our modern day lives are increasingly affected by economics and commercial profitability considerations. Another interesting book very similar to this one is "The Progress Paradox" by Gregg Easterbrook.


Rating:
Summary: Presented in a Nice Format
Review: This was a good book, although definitely not for the advanced psychology student or professional. The ideas that Schwartz presents would be a great supplement to an introductory course in personality or social psychology, as it presents many of the key terms from those areas. Schwartz's main theory is that we, as a society, are presented with too many choices in our daily lives, and that more choice does not lead to a better quality of life. In fact, he argues that we should be satisfied with `good enough' and not seek to maximize our experiences all the time. The book was very general in nature and was easy to read and understand; the examples he used to illustrate his points were clear and easy to identify with as well. I didn't really learn anything new from the material presented here, but it was a great refresher on the subject and some of the main ideas of psychology in general.