Warning: minor spoilers ahead for those who haven’t seen “Avengers: Infinity War” or “Doctor Strange” yet.
It was the 11th hour
Planets across the universe were becoming overpopulated. Food was increasingly hard to come by, and it would only be a matter of time before wars would be waged over it.
Thanos witnessed these atrocities first-hand, and felt compelled to save the universe… by wiping out half of it. And even though you could argue that the end justifies the means, Thanos didn’t possess all the means just yet. He would need the Time Stone hanging from Doctor Strange’s neck to succeed. If Thanos were to combine this stone with the Infinity Gauntlet, he’d be unstoppable. It would be up to Strange and the Avengers to prevent him from ever obtaining it.
Just moments before their final showdown, Strange had used the Time Stone to look into all possible futures on how to stop Thanos. And after evaluating 14 million possible outcomes, Strange had some bad news to share: there was only 1 scenario that could possibly lead them to victory. And despite their valiant efforts in fighting Thanos, their impending doom now seemed imminent. Thanos was simply too powerful. Not even Iron Man Tony Stark could put a scratch on him.
As their final hour drew near, Strange hid the Time Stone by casting a dimension warping spell on it. If Thanos wanted to get his hands on the Time Stone now, he’d have to bargain with Strange. And despite Strange not being in much of a position to bargain, Thanos agreed to spare Stark’s life in exchange for the Time Stone. “Why would you do that?”, Stark asked in great disbelief. Giving Thanos the Time Stone would mean the end to the universe!
“Tony, there was no other way…”, Strange answered as he turned to dust.
Had Strange overlooked something? Or was this still all part of his plan?
Maximizers
Cliffhangers aside, Dr. Strange is what you might call a maximizer: someone who seeks to maximize the benefits and utility of their decision by weighing all options available to them. Interested in finding the best Ramen restaurant in your neighbourhood for example? Answering that question might involve spending many hours on Yelp, as well as trying out a bunch of places. It might even involve asking a friend or two for help.¹
Satisficers
Satisficers on the other hand are pretty much the opposite of maximizers: someone who chooses the first option that meets their (modest) criteria. For example: ever felt so hungry that you could eat a horse? You probably couldn’t be bothered to find the best restaurant in those cases right? Finding something that remotely resembles food would probably do just fine in those cases.²
Are you a maximizer or a satisficer; or perhaps both?
Our decision making generally tends to fall under these two categories. Have you figured out which of the two you subscribe to? It depends on the circumstances right? A technophobe foodie might act as a maximizer and satisficer when it comes to buying food and gadgets respectively. The values you hold dear may very well affect how you choose.
We’d be remiss however to ignore how these values are shaped by the times we live in. Where people were more likely to act as satisficers in the past, people are more likely to act as maximizers in the present. Millennials for instance are exposed to far more information streams than people in the past could ever imagine (thanks internet!). And with information being more readily available to us, we are also able to make better informed decisions. It can even open our eyes to options we weren’t even previously aware of.
The paradox of choice
This is where things get muddy though. On the one hand, we seem to benefit tremendously from having more options: more options means having more opportunities, and more opportunities means having more freedom.
On the other hand, we tend to feel overwhelmed when given a Chinese food menu: which of the 100 listed dishes is the one we’re going to end up enjoying the most? Heaven forbid that we end up choosing a dish that turns out to be just okayish! Maybe we should order the entire menu just to be sure we’re not missing out on anything?!³
All joking aside, we seem to have this sort of love-hate relationship when it comes to having more options. We crave it on the one hand (as described by single option aversion), but also seem to get overwhelmed by it. What’s the cause for this Paradox of Choice (2004, Swartz)? And is there perhaps a good way of dealing with this?
Fear of missing out (FOMO)
To understand what kinds of problems can arise from having multiple options, we need to understand what choice actually entails. If we are given multiple options to choose from, then choosing one option essentially means forfeiting the alternatives. What’s to say that our choice is the most optimal one though? If the choice we’re asked to make is not within our area of expertise, we wouldn’t be able to tell for sure. In fact, the decision leading to maximum satisfaction may very well be one of the options we’re about to discard!
This fear of missing out on better opportunities can have a debilitating effect on our decision making. It can even lead to something called analysis paralysis, which prohibits us from making any meaningful progress in life at all. So what constitutes this fear of missing out?
Loss aversion
We hate losing. In fact, we seem to hate losing way more than we enjoy winning. Nobel prize winner psychologist Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky were among the first to observe this phenomenon of loss aversion.
To understand why loss aversion makes choice even harder, consider the following. If receiving $100 means gaining X units of satisfaction, then by the same token, losing $100 should mean losing X units of satisfaction. Now imagine you are given $100, and are asked to return it a few moments later. This brief exchange of money would mean you’d first gain X amount of satisfaction, and lose that same amount of satisfaction a little bit later down the line. In other words, you’d be no worse off in terms of satisfaction than if you hadn’t participated in this silly experiment: X-X=0 after all. Nothing gained, nothing lost.
Kahneman and Tversky’s findings seem to contradict this assumption however: despite playing break-even, they found that we actually end up feeling more dissatisfied than if we hadn’t participated in this little experiment. This seems to indicate that the effects of losing are more profound than those of gaining! Even if the thing we lost was only ours for a few minutes! (Some studies have found this loss-gain ratio to be 2:1)
Our caveman ancestors might be able to explain this “endowment effect” to us. Having more food than needed would generally mean going to bed on a slightly fuller belly: it wouldn’t make us much more happy after being full (law of diminishing marginal utility). Losing out on that same amount of food however could potentially mean starving to death. It would only make sense to treat losses as being more severe than gains if we are to survive those cases. And even though we’ve come a long way from being cavemen, our brains are still wired in primal ways.
The irony here is that the mechanism that was supposed to help us survive is also the thing that often prevents us from moving forward. Choice involves “losing” the alternative options, and Kahneman and Tversky have shown that we seem to be averse to that. So averse even that we may end up adopting a risk averse decision strategy: choose a certain outcome over an uncertain one, even if the gains are guaranteed to be “not the best”. But if we choose something that is going to be for sure suboptimal, doesn’t that cause a maximizer’s imagination to wander into “shoulda, coulda, woulda’s”?
Indeed — even if the choice we made satisfies our direct needs, there might still be that thought in the back of our mind eating away at us: did we really make the best choice? This can sour the outcome of any decision we make, and introduce this little thing called buyer’s remorse.
Buyer’s remorse
Buyer’s remorse is the sense of regret we feel after making a particular purchase. We’re particularly prone to this when we’re buying something expensive, or something that required a lot of effort to obtain. The opportunity costs for making that purchase are so significant, that they had better be worth it. This way of thinking raises expectations considerably, and sets you up for disappointment more easily.
An example you might be familiar with involves buying a new phone. We use our phones extensively throughout the day, so we’re generally okay with putting in a bit of work on finding “the best one”. After spending a few days comparing phones, we may end up settling for a $1000+ iPhone. A few days later however, we might feel some regret creeping in. Maybe the phone didn’t live up to our expectations. Or maybe Apple just announced a newer and better model for pretty much the same price point. Ouch! The thing that was supposed to make us feel awesome is now the thing that makes us feel like crap. How did up here? And how do we deal with this mental discomfort?
Cognitive dissonance
The cause for buyer’s remorse is often attributed to cognitive dissonance: the psychological discomfort experienced by someone who holds two or more contrary beliefs, ideas or values. And in trying to get rid of this discomfort, our minds are capable of doing some Olympian level mental gymnastics.
Remember the phone example from before? Knowing that a newer and better model is available is a contrary belief to us currently having the latest and greatest. There are several ways we can deal with this discomfort:
- Get rid of the phone by selling it or returning it (and go through the whole ordeal of picking the right phone again), or;
- Stick your head in the sand by avoiding news sites and discussions that attack our beliefs of having made the right choice, or;
- Convince ourselves that we didn’t want the newer model anyway, even though we secretly did.
The latter is something we often seem to do in lieu of the former options. And even though we’re able to alleviate some discomfort by telling ourselves sweet little lies like this, we might not be able to convince ourselves entirely. Some discomfort may linger as a result. What might be causing this? And how can we deal with it?
Locus of control
To understand the ways in which we can torture ourselves, or make ourselves feel better, we need to understand the concept of locus of control: the degree to which people believe they have control over the outcome of events in their lives, as opposed to external forces beyond their control.
In other words, people who believe that their future is determined by their own actions are said to have an internal locus of control. People who believe that their future is controlled by others (including things like “cosmic justice”) are said to have an external locus of control. So how does this all tie into choice and discomfort?
The blame game
Remember when we talked about choice being a matter of making trade-offs? And that having more information should in theory allow us to make better informed decisions? Sounds like an environment that would favour people with an internal locus of control right? Not quite.
Choice involves forgoing alternative options, and this is something that people with an internal locus of control feel they have direct control over. Who’s to blame in those cases if the choice didn’t turn out the way they had expected? No-one else but themselves right? They were the ones after all who crossed off the other options — nobody else did. This is usually the point where people start to beat themselves up over making a decision that — despite satisfying their present criteria — might still feel suboptimal. (Damn you buyer’s remorse!)
What about people with an external locus of control though? How do they feel about making a suboptimal decision? Strangely enough, not blaming yourself may be key to minimizing discomfort. So should we blame others for the poor choices we’ve made instead? Well, if you’re confident about your odds of winning a fist-fight, then sure, go right ahead. Because I’m pretty sure others will resent you for this type of blame shifting behaviour.
So here’s a crazy idea: how about not blaming anyone at all?
Some tips for combatting choice anxiety and regret: self-compassion, and lowering expectations
They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And in underscoring this old adage, Swartz recommends lowering your expectations to prevent disappointment when making a choice. And if prevention is no longer an option, Eric Barker suggests self-compassion in his best-selling book Barking up the Wrong Tree. Compassion is something we often extend to others, but seldom give to ourselves. Rather than using those hands to beat yourself up for making a suboptimal decision, how about using them to hug yourself every now and then instead?
Lowering expectations also has the benefit of making you act more as a satisficer. And when all costs are factored in (e.g. money, time and anguish), Nobel Prize winning economist Herbert Simon has found that satisficing is the maximizing strategy. Oh the irony…
Operating like a satisficer allows you to “get what you paid for” (i.e. ticking the boxes that a choice needs to fulfil at a minimum) without suffering from the mental discomfort caused by things like FOMO and buyer’s remorse. The fact that satisficers don’t look too hard into other options essentially shields them from belabouring their potential outcomes. What’s to say that those alternatives aren’t burdened with their own set of problems anyway? Shouldn’t we just be happy with what we currently have?
Ignorance in that sense really can be bliss.
Conclusion
As for the paradox of choice, Swartz believes that more is less: after reaching some threshold in available options, adding more options may very well be detrimental to our decision making. Economists on the other hand tend to ridicule this thought as they believe that more is more: they believe that adding more options shouldn’t affect people who don’t care for these extra options, but could help out at least one person who does (Pareto Improvement). And even though this might be true for some cases, it’s far from being the default.
Domain experts for instance know exactly what to optimize for, so adding options can be a big plus to them. So more is more in those cases. But how often are we able to call ourselves domain experts for the choices we’re making on a daily basis? I’d be comfortable for instance in choosing the best computer for myself, but when it comes to choosing the right laundry detergent, I’d probably be no wiser than the person standing next to me in the supermarket.⁴
Continuously optimizing our decisions for an edge case like that does not make sense to Swartz: it detracts from the time and joy we have from being alive. We seldom are domain experts, and some things simply aren’t worth overthinking⁵. Yet we seem to treat each and every decision we make like it’s the most important one in our lives. From the type of toilet paper we choose, to the type of laundry detergent we use, we seem to suffer from what economist Fred Hirsch describes as “the tyranny of small decisions”. All for the sake of ‘experiencing more freedom’.
When it comes to actual freedom however, Swartz notes that we value having our autonomy respected more than actually having to act upon it. In other words, we like the idea of being free more than having to act like it. Swartz cites a study by physician Atul Gawande to back this claim: 65% of the participants had indicated that they’d like to be able to choose their own medical treatment if they would get cancer. But when that same study was conducted in a group of actual cancer patients, only 12% of them responded in this manner. Having true autonomy also means being able to relinquish it at our own volition. There are times that we simply lack the knowledge and expertise to make a well informed decision. And if the clock is ticking, Swartz believes we should be able to entrust having the right choice being made for us. Preferably by domain experts, e.g. doctors. In those cases, choosing less is more.
So choose wisely.
You can read more about the pros and cons of having more options in Swartz’ best-selling book The Paradox of Choice (2004). I would also recommend reading Eric Barker’s Barking up the Wrong Tree and Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow as this article borrows and combines ideas from those books, too.
As for happiness and regret, choose life 🚂.
Footnotes
- But if you were to check out all options, wouldn’t that essentially mean an infinite number of options? Yes, but the distinction here needs to be made on intent: if you aspire to investigate all options, then that alone would make you a maximizer. And while we’re on the topic of ramen: if you’re in Amsterdam, go check out Tokyo Ramen Iki. It’s hands-down the best place for Ramen (try the shoyu special and kareage); say hi if you happen to catch me there!
- Was Dr. Strange really looking for the best outcome? Or would he have been happy with any outcome that involved Thanos’ demise? Maybe Dr. Strange was a satisficer rather than a maximizer after all. The fact that he had to evaluate millions of options to end up with only 1 that ‘satifies the victory’ criterium makes it hard to discern. He was willing to forfeit his own life however in making his choice. Sacrificing one’s life doesn’t really square with maximizing utility for themselves in my book, so the case could be made that Strange was a satisficer(?). Besides, evaluating all options would technically mean an infinite number of possibilities. Minuscule differences such as how one strand of hair is positioned could bring about a butterfly effect. This was also shown in Dr Strange’s own feature film when he faced Dormammu: Strange would rewind time to keep Dormammu trapped in facing Strange for eternity if he wouldn’t give up. The insanity of having to potentially deal with all infinite outcomes was the thing that drove Dormammu into submission. I wonder why he didn’t do the same to Thanos… I guess it’d make for a far less interesting movie if everyone could be strong-armed into giving up like that. #showerthoughts
- Satisficers probably don’t know what it’s like to feel this kind of choice paralysis. They’re likely to ask the waiter for any recommendations, compare it to some list of modest criteria (e.g. vegetarian? fish? meat? allergies?) and call it a day. And they wouldn’t be wrong in choosing so: Swartz claims that the “wisdom of the crowd” is often far more accurate than any individual alone is able to make predictions on.
- So if having more options comes with so many problems, why do businesses keep peddling this idea of more is more? One explanation could be that providing more options shifts the responsibility of picking the right one from them to you. If there were only 3 options for laundry detergent for instance, you’d be more inclined to blame the supermarket for not having the right options available if you happened to choose one you didn’t end up liking. By providing a myriad of options however, the responsibility for not choosing the right one shifts from them to you. As we’ve discussed earlier however, the best way to beat the self-blame game in those cases, is arguably not to play.
- Choices aren’t just based on reasoning. They are also based on feelings. Neuroscience professor Antonio Damasio claims that when we make a decision, we don’t just store the reasoning and outcome of that decision, but also how that decision made us feel. The latter is what Damasio believes constitutes our gut-feeling. When we are faced with making a decision, we look for similar occurrences from the past to guide us through the unknowns of the future. This includes recalling our feelings about those past decisions, and can help us make future decisions much faster. As with almost everything in life however, listening to your gut-feeling should be done in moderation lest you want to become extinct because of instinct.
It may be a good idea to call your gut-feeling into question when making a tough decision. Kahneman claims that the way we remember experiences is almost entirely determined by two things: the way we felt at the peak of the experience (best or worst), and how we felt when it ended. This is also known as Kahneman’s peak-end rule.
To understand how this works, consider the following study: suppose two groups are listening to the same Justin Bieber album for 8 seconds (oh the agony!). Now suppose that the first group is allowed to go, but the other group is required to listen to 8 more seconds of this hot garbage. The only difference is that the volume has been turned down by 50% this time around. So the latter group had to endure the same torture as the first group, but with an additional 8 seconds of torture at 50% volume at the end. Guess which group found this experiment more unpleasant? The 8 second group, or the 16 second group?
Your gut-feeling might tell you the 16 second group, but you’d be wrong. Indeed— despite the 16 second group having endured twice the punishment, the fact that it ended in more of a whimper rather than an abrupt bang made them feel like it was more bearable. And because it was experienced as being more bearable in the moment (experienced utility), we will remember it as such (remembered utility) and try to replicate it in the future when given the same choice (expected utility). Again, this shouldn’t logically make sense as it involves listening to Bieber longer. Who wants that?! Swartz infers from this discrepancy between logic and memory that we don’t always know what we truly want. (P.S. Kahneman didn’t actually use Bieber, but that’s about as painful as I personally can imagine the actual test sound to have been.)
The Science of Success
This article is part of a series I’m writing on “The Science of Success”. What initially started out as a Feynman exercise to improve my writing has now turned into a passion for understanding the human psyche better. Feel free to hit the follow button if you would like to receive updates of new entries in this series too. I’d love to have you with me on this journey!
Special thanks goes out to Danny Nguyen for the psychology knowledge bomb. And special thanks goes out to Camden Narzt, Floor Drees and Niels van der Zanden for proof-reading this article: it would’ve been twice as long without their feedback, at the detriment of the central thesis. The fact that you’re (still) reading this line means that they’ve made the right call 😉
