Rating: 
Summary: Incessant repitition of a basic concept basic concept
Review: The concept is interesting and made for a good five page article in the New Yorker magazine. However, once you read the first chapter, it's deja vu all over again for the next 10 chapters.
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.
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: An engaging, lively, thoughtful book!
Review: This is an eye-opening book -- it brings the clarity and insight into decision-making that The Tipping Point did for trends. I have seen Barry Schwartz interviewed on TV and listened to a radio interview regarding this book. These interviews focused a lot on decision-making in things like shopping, and how having more choices actually makes shopping harder and makes everyone dislike the process more. I think "Paradox of Choice" does bring insight into shopping, but its range is actually much wider than that. Schwartz discusses people making difficult decisions about jobs, families, where to live, whether to have children, how to spend recreational time, choosing colleges, etc. He talks about why making these decisions today is much harder than it was 30 years ago, and he offers many practical suggestions for how to address decision-making so that it creates less stress and more happiness. He even discusses how so much additional choice affects children, and how parents can help make childhood (particularly young childhood) less stressful. There are two other factors about this book that really made it great for me. The first is that Schwartz is a serious academic (although his writing isn't dense in any way at all) -- so he talks about studies that back up his assertions in every facet of his argument. He describes the studies in a very lively way, so that they really come to life, and we can understand how they relate to the issue at hand. And, importantly, we then realize that his discussion is really founded on the latest and most advanced research into decision-making. This is not some self-help guru with a half-baked idea spouting off. The other thing that I really like about this book is that it has given me a new way to think about our larger society, and what I like and don't like about it. Schwartz has written books before that are expressly critiques of some aspects of America today, and while this book is more focused on the individual, you can't help but come away feeling more thoughtful about the larger effect of these issues on our culture. I only wish that I had read this book before my latest career change -- it would have saved me a considerable amount of anguish. This is a great book!!
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books of the last several years
Review: Truly outstanding. Rigorous analysis, impeccable organization and logic, clear writing. Rich but not complex in its interweaving of economics, psychology, sociology, anthropology and applied wisdom. Rewarding to read in full, unlike so many books with a single excellent idea that a one-page synopsis could express. One of my favorite books of the last several years, suitable for anyone with intellectual curiosity or a personal need to make decisions more easily or with greater satisfaction.
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