So your grocery store offers 200 salad dressing options. And you can pick from like a thousand different cuts of jeans.
You’ve got all this choice — why aren’t you happy yet?
Sez Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice (which I leafed through a while back), in the lil TED video below: The problem’s the lack of a pleasant surprise. “The secret to happiness is low expectations,” he sez, tongue in cheek.
The problem, as Barry lays it out, is this: Shop for a pair of jeans. With just 1 option, you’re forced to buy something ill-fitting — which you’ll learn to deal with it. But given 1,000 choices, you’ll spend a helluva lotta time selecting yr jeans. And while your final choice might fit better, it’ll likely not satisfy you much — cuz your expectation will be for a “perfect” pair of jeans, which the pair you bought isn’t likely to be. Furthermore, since there are so many damn options, you’ll blame YOURSELF for not getting the pair that coulda, woulda been perfect….
How’s this relevant to fair trade or enviro issues? Well — Barry asserts that income redistribution — which’ll hopefully give the poorest people more choice, while limiting the choices of the richest people a bit — will make EVERYONE — the poor AND the rich — better off in terms of personal satisfaction, happiness, etc.
The video got me thinking a bit about the way I limit my consumer choices. For ex, in terms of food, I don’t eat beef, pork, or poultry — a practice that drastically simplifies the process of trying to select from a restaurant menu. Furthermore, I’m about organic and local — So if either of those options are on the menu, I’ll pick them, further simplifying things.
And shopping at Trader Joe’s — where, often the only avaliable choice for many products is the TJ’s brand — helps too :)
The same goes for my other consumer options. Say I need a new pair of flip flops. Well, you all know I was limited to just 4-5 different styles.
My tentative suggestion: If the overabundance of choices in our western world’s overwhelming you, consider going organic and animal-, eco- friendly. Not only’ll you do good for the world around you, you’ll streamline the choices you have to contend with, giving a boost to your overall happiness –
September 29th, 2006 at 8:03 am
That book has been on my to-read list for a while. How did you like what you read?
September 29th, 2006 at 9:44 am
Very interesting! I’ll have to read it. What came to my mind was our recent apt search in Santa Monica. We gave ourselves 3 days and limited ourselves to Santa Monica and Venice. We picked the best apartment we saw in those 3 days. Sure it’s not perfect, but I bet we would have been less satisfied if we would have searched for weeks and weeks for the perfect place. Cause ‘perfect’ doesn’t exist.
September 29th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Thanks for this post. I’m not so great with decisions, and although I’m vegetarian and try to make eco-friendly choices, I never really thought about these as limiting factors, but I think that consciously thinking about these things might help me make better and easier decisions.
September 29th, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Yeah, another book I’ve been meaning to read and haven’t yet gotten to. I have never understood consumer behavior based upon a preconceived ideal of perfection. Assuming that those 200 salad dressings and 1000 blue jean varieties cost app. the same, they should yield app. the same satisfaction. Why? Because if one dressing or blue jean really was perfect, consumers would rush to buy them, thus bidding up the price of each. Due to budget constraints (in my case, very limited ones), consumers would substitute less costly goods for the “perfect” ones.
From my perspective, the only truly perfect goods for a consumer are the absolute necessities of life that consumers, regardless of their budget constraint, will pay anything for: water, electricity (for heat and light), cereals (for food), etc. Extreme drug addicts (e.g.: heroin) exhibit this sort of behavior as well. The key is to ensure that individuals do not exploit others based upon the characteristics of these goods (as some at Enron did to California residents).
My suggestion: Put a linear research boundary on the cost of a purchase. Meaning, if your time is worth, say, $15 an hour and you want to buy a $20,000 car, invest 5% ($1,000 or ~67 hours of your time) in research. Obviously all these variables would be subject to consumer preferences. But, for a $40 pair of jeans, the above rule would yield only eight minutes of research.
Anyway, thanks for the post. Economists think way too little about what underpins consumer theory.
September 30th, 2006 at 11:49 am
thats gonna go on my must-read list.
September 30th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
I totally agree with you here. We’re presented with far too many choices , as if this is a good thing. We don’t need 20 types of balsamic dressing, we don’t NEED 15 white bread options. But we have them stuffed in our faces. I was always taught that if you can just be happy with what you have, hey, you’ll be happy. If you aren’t happy until you acquire the perfect object, you’ll never be happy. Because there is always something ‘better’. Unfortunaly, I think tthis also affects relationships. Instead of accepting and seeing the best parts of a person, we discard them as soon as they don’t fit our ideal of perfection. We seriously think there is someone out there who IS perfect, if we can JUST find them. Not gonna happen. Unlike a sandwich, you can’t have bit’s of a person ‘on the side’ for you to pick at. But we’ve all got so used to having choices and having things our way, that we’re doomed to unhappiness. By the way, I love your blog, I read it every day. I’ve lived in LA for 9 years, and still don’t have a car. I walk, bike, or bus everywhere.
October 1st, 2006 at 3:36 pm
I did really enjoy the book. Made me think about choice in terms I’d never thought ’bout before…
Callie — I like your apartment search method! My method was pretty similar — My budget limited a lotta stuff, so the pickins were rather slim. Still, I’m in my new place and am v. happy :)
Fletch — Our minds work so differently! Dude, just trying to “put a linear research boundary on the cost of a purchase” makes my head spin for hours –
Bradley — Thanks for the props! So sweet of you :) And I was wondering — where in LA do you live? Am curious to find out if you feel your particular location in our metropolis has made it easier to de-car?