The paradox of choice

Barry Schwartz gave a really impressive TED talk in Jan, 2007 on his book “The paradox of choice”. While it is certainly true that choices enables us to choose our own path, and is at the core of each of us humans possessing unique personalities, he made some really interesting points against the common, western modern ideology that “more choices means more freedom means more wellfare of people”.

We all know the benefits of having more choices, let’s look at some of its disadvantages.

• Regret and Opportunity cost

  While more choices gives you more freedom, it also requires more thought and effort to evaluate the choices you have. At each step, you need to analysis, asses, and compare the different choices. And the regret of not knowing if your choice was the best diminishes the value of the current choice.

• Escalation of expectation

  Having more choice raises your expectation about the result, and then, even a good choice is not enough in front of the expectation of perfect. Less choice at least give you the satisfaction of selecting the best option.

• Self-blame

  If you have only one option, even if the result is disappointing, it’s the choices fault: That was the only option. If you have a million choices, the onus is on you to select the best choice, and selecting even an okay option is your fault → Self-blame

After listening to his talk, I self-reflected how I keep myself sane in this sea of choices. Just this morning, I was looking for a new Kitchen Appliance (that I have no knowledge about, having never owned one before). I analysed my thought process and broke it down as follows:

• Define Criteria: My first step was to look for some information on the internet on which factors makes the appliance better and which fits a kitchen like mine. Then I created a list of criteria, in their order of priority, to search for on the internet. More than half of my time would be spent on this step than the actual search.
• Limiting the search space: Next I selected some reputable brands and limited my search to only these brands. It is definitely possible that other brands also make really good products. But the ones I selected also make good product. My goal is not to select the best product, but a perfectly good product.
• Selecting the Product: I prefer to select 3-4 product that satisfy my previously defined criteria and select my final product between them.

This process may not always be the optimal strategy but it does always give me the peace of mind. I think I agree with the points Barry made in his talk, and I feel I already follow some of them.

I would like to conclude this blog with Barry’s words:

Is having more choice good or bad? The answer is Yes.