The Paradox of Choice

Book #6! The much fabled half-way point on my quest to finish 12 books this year! I'm so excited to be here. The book itself was mediocre (which is why, despite the fact that I've been done with it for about a month, I haven't been able to bring myself to summarize it) but well-enough written and mindless fodder for plane reading. The book was The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. Here's a summary from the author's site:

As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis. And in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression.

The biggest problem with Professor Schwartz's book is that his premise leads to some natural defensiveness on the part of the reader - because, of course, someone telling you that more choice isn't good doesn't come across so well. After all, isn't that what revolutions were fought for? He doesn't illustrate his point well enough to over come the natural defensiveness that comes when someone tells you you should limit the number of choices available to you.

A great example of where this got my personal hackles up was with his starting analogy. He starts his book by lamenting the number of choices of pant styles available at the Gap (he doesn't name the store, but given how he describes the options, I'm pretty sure he was in the Gap...). This is not only a problem I don't empathize with, it's not even something I consider a problem. I don't want anyone to take away the ability for me to chose between straight leg and flare, or to chose wash colors. Prof Schwartz, on the other hand, was daunted by this whole process:

"...it occured to me that day that buying a pair of jeans should not be a daylong project. ...by vastly expanding the range of choices, they had created a new problem that needed to be solved. Before these options were availble, a buyer like myself had to settle for imperfect fit, but at least purchasing jeans was a five minute affair. Now it was a complex decision in which I forced myself to invest time, energy, and no small amount of self-doubt, anxiety, and dread."

This tends to be the problem with his thesis - he find buying jeans daunting and anxiety-ridden. He wants not choices, so it's dirt obvious what he should buy. I don't. Everyone has areas where they feel especial competence and additional choices are not paralyzing, but those areas are unique to each person. Hence the problem with his blanket statement that "too much choice is a bad thing." Take away my choices in fit and style and I'd really feel it as a loss. Take away my car buying options and I wouldn't blink.

(As an intersting side note, I heard Prof Schwartz on NPR talking about the new social security plans and how that choice overload was going to lead to more of his choice paralysis. The host and the other speaker on the show with him just tore into him over the idea that people should have less choices. (NPR tear-down of the year - courtesy of Ross Roberts on the show with him "Well, professor, I'm certainly glad students had the choice over whether to take your class or not..." Zing!) His argument is fairly nuanced and he approaches it with such a blunt edge that it's really hard to defend him (or for him to defend himself) against attacks.)

Anyway, the book isn't really well research enough to have a ton of "interesting stats" to throw down (which is, more than anything, what frustrated me about this book), but here are some of the tidbits that did come out:

• "Peak-end" theory: Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues showed that humans judge experiences by how they felt at their "peak" (best or worst) and how they felt when they ended. We tend to summarize experiences into the "peak-end" summary and then use that summary to judge the experience in the future. (My living testiment to this tendency is how I summarize my experience in the Hood to Coast race... which if I'm honest was more terrible than good, but because the peak and end points were both positive, I'm willing to trudge through it again. Stupid experience summarizing...)
• People are either "satisfiers" or "maximizers" when they make a particular choice. A satisfier is willing to settle for something that is good enough and to not worry about the possibility that there might be something better. A maximizer needs to be assured that every purchase or decision is the best that could be made - so they tend to obsess more about finding the absolute lowest price, the absolute perfect fit, etc. No one is completely one or the other, but on each choice we have a propesity towards one of the other.
• We tend to obsess over decisions which we think reveal something significant about ourselves (chosing a movie for a group, chosing clothes and furniture, and the like).

The book was fairly well written and lucid, but poorly researched and the parts that were researched tended to not be explored in enough depth. Overall, not a book I would recommend. Just be glad you have the choice to read it, if you want. :p