Paradox of Choice , Barry Schwartz

in decision •  7 years ago 

Products , products everywhere but what are we going to buy them ? which one is price efficient. Even choosing a shampoo become a confusing job in our recent era.The decision made when there are too many options can make a person unhappy because he has given up on other options. While we may be more happy with few options, we are drowning in many choices and we consider this situation under the name of "Decision-Making Paradox".

Decision-Making Process

Barry Schwartz says "You get satisfied with fever options , however you get drowned in a lot of options" in his book.According to Schwartz book if you are making a decision that is 80 percent close what you want and if you get satisfied with this purchase you are a satisficer. However if you get paralyzed when you are searching the best option and you get unhappy because of searching the best possibility you are a maximizer.

Well if you are working on a medicine or if you are making measurements in war it is reasonable for you to be a perfectionist because of the nature of the job. However lets say that you are going to buy yourself a cool pair of jeans in your daily life. You entered to the store and asked for a trendy jean , the store showed you 20 options with just little differences and you started to think , which one is better ? should I buy the skinny fit one , it would be much better if the color is little brighter. Why is this one 30 bucks other one 50 What is the difference ?. Eventually you spent a lot of mental power when you are just buying a jeans . Eventually after thinking on possible options you just buy one and leave the store.

Do you think this story ends happy ? No , no if you are maximazer now you start to think and evaluate your purchase again. Should I check the other stores for more options ? My friend bought something similar a lot cheaper , Is it trendy enough ? aaaaaand you are drowned in options.

Barry Schwatz talking about paradox of choice

When you consider the time amount and thinking you made on a buying action on jeans in order to maximize your purchase , you are realy not maximizing it because it is just jeans. We all know that cognitive biases may cause negative affects . Narrow your options and just pick one that is suitable without doing that thinking methodology everytime you are going to buy something , that will make you happier.

Thanks for Reading & Hasta La Vista!

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It’s a fact that when presented with a lot of options when buying we tend to get paralyze because we don’t know what to choose.

My solution is kind of simple, just go with the first one you find is good enough and DONE. Otherwise we could stay there and lose valuable time while choosing products that are mostly the same. We all know certain people that spend hours shopping for trying to find the “perfect dress” or whatever...

Totally agree. One of my tactics is to decide beforehand what I need. Then I only go look for that look at nothing else because it is not what I came for. Sort of like filtering out all the excess.

Thank You bro great post

The power of decision fatigue is real. Just look at grocery stores. First, your brain gets tried from making all those choices, and then they shove all the sugary goodness in your face at the cashier. Your brain is too tired to make the proper decision about the long term effects of the candy, and caves in.