Fewer Choices, Fewer Problems
We all love freedom of choice, but an overwhelming set of options leads to stress, discontent, and indecision.
Is there such a thing as a perfect value? Is there a value almost always worth striving for or preserving? It’s sort of a curious, abstract philosophical thought but please, bear with me.
Freedom, for example, is hailed as one of the foundational cornerstones of western industrial societies. Freedom from the dictates of a tyrannical regime. Freedom from the inhumanity of a slave-holder. Freedom to practice one’s native traditions and customs. But all values are two-faced. That’s why there are limits to people’s freedom. If unhinged, it could infringe others’ freedoms, causing them pain or suffering.
But there’s a breed of freedom that one seldom contemplates, much less considers how its virtue could unconsciously manifest into a vice. That would be the freedom of choice. Let’s say you’re entering your average supermarket today. You will be bombarded with literally thousands of options, whether it’s salad dressing or toothpaste. The same is true for other domains. Take the modern cell phone, which some, myself included, erroneously sort into just two categories: iPhones and Androids. The truth is there are 29 different iterations of the iPhone and over 24,000 unique Android smartphones and tablets.
What could be bad about having such a vast array of options? In fact, in response to people’s criticism of capitalism — in particular, its built-in element of competition and the “tooth n’ nail” mentality it promotes — its advocates invoke the value of consumers being able to choose. Nonetheless, studies strongly suggest that contrary to conventional wisdom, having too many choices leads to unhappiness, indecision, and stress.
A famous study involving jams substantiates this very claim. It was authored in 2000 by Sheena Iyengar, a business professor at Columbia, and Mark R. Lepper, a psychology professor at Stanford. Their team set up booths of jam samples in a California gourmet market. For several hours, they would offer a selection of 24 samples of jam, and then they’d reduce the selection to 6 varieties to see what would happen. Iyengar and Lepper found that the large number of samples attracted 60% of shoppers, whereas only 40% of shoppers stopped by the other assortment. In both situations, customers tasted the same number of jams on average. What’s truly astonishing, though, is that when 24 flavors were displayed, 4 out of the 145 people who stopped by — about 3% — made a purchase. When 6 flavors were displayed, 31 out of the 105 people who stopped — about 30% — made a purchase.
The primary mechanism at work, choice overload, is also known as analysis paralysis. This is the state of overthinking such that no final decision is actually made. Later studies confirm that this tendency to let an overwhelming number of choices snowball into indecision applies to defining life decisions as well as trivial matters.
We’ve all been there. You’re scrolling through Netflix for the perfect show for what seems like an eternity, only to choose something you’ve already watched. Or perhaps you’ve planned a dinner date and can’t quite find the right tie or cologne. According to previous research, you’d be classified as a maximizer; this is an individual who, irrespective of the significance of the decision, will go to great lengths to ensure they make the best choice. They are the ones more likely to regret decisions in the long term. Chidi Anagonye from the hit show The Good Place is the epitome of a maximizer, well known for his intense anxiety concerning decision-making, which followed him even into the afterlife. This common malaise comes from a deep-seated conviction that our choices define us (and make no mistake, they do). Was it not Aristotle, the father of Western logic and founder of one of the first universities, who said that “character is determined by choice, not opinion”? Nonetheless, some choices — like what socks to wear or what cereal to buy — are obviously less pressing than others, a distinction that could go a long way in reducing overthinking.
What happens to the other camp of people, individuals who are content with opting for sufficiency and therefore make snap decisions? According to research by Thomas Saltsman, senior lab director of the Social Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University at Buffalo, these satisficers actually exhibit a more negative physical reaction when making decisions, with their bodies reacting as if being threatened. Saltsman observes this is likely because satisficers don’t trust themselves to make the best choice, so they simply give up.
About a decade ago, Benjamin Scheibehenne, a researcher at the University of Basel in Switzerland, co-wrote an analysis stressing the distinction between having too many choices and having too much information at hand. The information readily accessible in making a choice is another variable that compounds on the stress brought on by endless options. This is a huge issue as living in the age of the internet means people could, with a click of a button, access the pros and cons of a decision, as well as the metric tons of information provided by others who are facing or have faced the same dilemma. This is another paradox apart from that of choice; in a time when we have access to more information than ever, decision-making is still frustrating.
Another component of this paradox is dissatisfaction, harkening back to the adage that the grass is always greener on the other side. Given a small sample of options, making a poor choice is typically blamed on the limited set itself. In a case with a large number of options, it’s as if the responsibility rests more squarely on our shoulders. What if I had chosen option B instead? Or C? Would I truly be happier? But with a huge number of options, we tend to blame ourselves because, well, with so many options within our control, it must be our fault.
The last dimension to this situation is efficiency. At the end of the day, we all possess a metaphorical finite reservoir of energy from which to summon the will for decision-making. If we let every single decision, especially the minor ones, consume unjustified or downright absurd amounts of energy, we will quickly succumb to fatigue and become vulnerable to the big, inevitable decisions, like whether to take that new job in another city or to have kids and so forth. Lest us forget that time is money; the time we waste making decisions that might just bum us out could be better spent differently.
The moral of the story is certainly not to eliminate choices but rather, to restrict them in light of what we know about decision-making. More research could be done to determine where the optimal range of options lies. In 2018, researchers from Caltech asked volunteers to make decisions while scanning their brains using an MRI. Brain activity was shown to be highest when said volunteers had 12 options, as opposed to 24 or 6, pointing to an ideal number of options. The ramifications are enormous for producers and companies. For example, stores or e-commerce websites may consider reducing the number of products they offer, so as to encourage purchases. Companies may, in the best interest of their employees, revise policies about 401(k) options. For consumers, it may mean recognizing the varying levels of importance of each decision and carving out an appropriate chunk of time and energy accordingly. They would all the while be patiently waiting for businesses across America to catch up to the groundbreaking work of economists and psychologists.
Sources:
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-too-much-choice-is-bad-2018-10
https://www.voanews.com/usa/all-about-america/having-too-many-choices-stressing-americans-out
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/your-money/27shortcuts.html
