头脑迷思之七 —— The Paradox of Choice

Life is a matter of choice.

We all agree that a life without significant choice would be unlivable. But this is only right to some degree. As revealed by recent studies in pshchology the explosion of choice often makes for misery. Barry Schwartz had a talk in TED to share his deep insight of the negative effects coming from abundant choice:

1. It will produce paralysis rather liberation. —— With so many choices to choose from, people find it difficult to choose at all.
2. Even we manage to overcome the paralysis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of our choice than we would be.

Why the more is not always better than less? Several factors are contributing to this conclusion

• Regret: It's easy to imagine that you could have made a different choice that would have been better. This imagined alternative induces you to regret the decision you made, and this regret subtracts from the satisfication you get out from the decision you made, even it was a good decision. The more options there are, the easier it is to regret anything at all that is disappointing about the option you chose. Kind of a double whammy.
• Opportunity cost: The quality of any given option cannot be assessed in isolation from its alternatives. How much the way in which we value things depends on what we compare them to as indicated by Dan Gilbert in another TED talk. Opportunity cost substract from the satificaton we get out of what we choose, even what we choose is terrific. The more options there to consider, the more attractive features of these options are going to be reflected by us as opportunity cost. The problem of opportunity costs will be worse for a maximizer (the best standard) than for a satisficer (good enough philosophy).
• Esclation of expectations: Adding options to people's life can't help but increase the expectations people have about these options would be, and what that's going to produce is less satification with the fruits of their efforts. On the other hand, people's adaptation will result in good feeling satiate and bad feeling escalate over time.
• Self-blame: when we make decisions, experience the consequences and find that they do not live up to expectations, weblame ourselves.

All these points made by Barry Schwartz support my previous arguement, if you love sb. enough, do not let her choose when facing important and difficult decision-making. You can take her needs into consideration, you can discuss with her thoroughly about pros and cons of different choices, but it should be you to make the tough call. Otherwise, you are shifting your responsibility to her. You are making her more depressed when the choice can't live up to your expectations and aspirations.

Besides, this is also supporting another "theory" in my youth, that is, I prefer the deep relationship with less friends to the shallow relationship with more friends. In general, it gives me a very clear priority list and is not hard to choose when conflict happens.

p.s. Barry Schwartz should take all the credits for this post. If you are interested, go here to watch it and there to read it.