Your thoughts on "The Tyranny of Choice?"

[coirecfox]

I was wondering if anyone here has heard of this book. Apparently it talks about how people have more choices nowadays--and resent it! The author states that people have become increasingly irritated with making choices and claims that, in truth, we dont have real choices anymore because most of the time people choose wrongly and are disappointed. Does anyone else see this going on around them? Being a college student, I see it all around me, especially in the form of people getting drunk to evade reality.

[edit] I think "The Tyranny of Choice" may actually be an article. It's written by Barry Schwartz.

"In an article titled, 'The Tyranny of Choice', Barry Schwartz, professor of social theory and social action at Swarthmore College, wrote: "Although some choice is undoubtedly better than none, more is not always better than less."

Schwartz, who is also the author of "Maximizing Versus Satisficing: Happiness is a Matter of Choice," points to studies by David Myers of Hope College and Robert Lane of Yale University, who conducted surveys on individual well being.

They found that increased choice and increased influence have been accompanied by a decrease in well-being.

"As the gross domestic product more than doubled in the past 30 years, the proportion of the population describing itself as 'very happy' declined by about 5 percent, or some 14 million people," Schwartz writes. And more Americans are clinically depressed than at any other time in our history. Schwartz is quick to point out that no single factor explains America's blues. However, "a number of findings indicate that the explosion of choice plays an important role."

Schwartz conducted his own research and, in doing so, categorizes his subjects into "maximizers" and "satisficers."

Maximizers are "those who always aim to make the best possible choice" and satisficers are "those who aim for 'good enough'."

Through Schwartz's study, it was found that maximizers are the least happy. "Naturally, no one can check every option, but maximizers strive toward that goal, and so making a decision becomes increasingly daunting as the number of choices rises.

"In the end, they are more likely to make better objective choices than satisficers but get less satisfaction from them," Schwartz writes.

There are several factors that explain why more choice is not always better than less, especially for maximizers -- one being what economists call "opportunity costs," which is to say that any given choice can't be assessed in isolation from the alternatives.

So, the cost of choosing 'A' is the loss of opportunity that would have come if you had chosen 'B.' "If we assume that opportunity costs reduce the overall desirability of the most preferred choice, then the more alternatives there are, the deeper our sense of loss will be and the less satisfaction we will derive from our ultimate decision," Schwartz explains.

Then there's adaptation, which is simply the human propensity to get used to things. And as a result of adaptability, most things turn out to be not quite as good as expected.

Add to that the effort many of us invest in the decisions we make and you've got a recipe for unhappiness. For example, "spending four months deciding what car stereo to buy is not so bad if you really enjoy that stereo for 15 years. But if you end up being excited by it for six months and then adapting, you may feel like a fool for having put in all the effort."

It appears Mom was right -- too much of anything isn't good -- even choice. Of course, we have to distinguish between meaningful choices and trivial concerns, but Schwartz's research shouldn't be dealt with too lightly.

After all, at a time when "free trade" and "globalization" are held up as goods of the highest order, Schwartz's insight can help us begin to understand why some people say: "No thanks. I'd rather be happy."

And that's something that not even a year's worth of columns by Thomas "You-Idiots-Just-Don't-Understand-Economics" Sowell could change."

http://www.alternet.org/story/18390 <---heres the website I found the article about "tyranny of choice" on

[stephen_speicher]

I was wondering if anyone here has heard of this book.  Apparently it talks about how people have more choices nowadays--and resent it!

I know nothing of the book, but it is interesting to note how Ayn Rand's sister Nora responded to choices when Miss Rand brought her sister to this country in the early 1970s. Nora was truly frightened of the many choices that confronted her, even for little things. For instance, she complained that when she asked for toothpaste at a drug store the clerk showed her an aisle filled with different brands. She was unaccustomed to such choices in Russia and she just wanted the clerk to tell her which toothpaste to buy! Clearly the contrast here was a lifetime of a relatively bleak existence in Russia accompanied by a lack of choice, and being suddenly exposed to the enormous number of choices that we are accustomed to in our daily lives. One would think that a person functioning on the right premises would embrace a sudden multiplicity of choices, but, alas, Ayn Rand's sister had lost the remnants of the sense of life that Miss Rand recalled her to have when they were young.

[AshRyan]

I did a short paper a couple of years ago on a newspaper article about the awful angst people supposedly experience when confronted with the choice of all the different kinds of band-aids to buy, as a kind of reductio ad absurdum on existentialism. One of the basic premises of existentialism is that we are beings of self-made soul, that we have free will, but that this places a terrible burden on us which causes us to suffer as a fundamental part of our existence. This idea is in these kinds of cases just a popular variant of that philosophy.

[AndrewSternberg]

I can recall times when I was presented with alternatives, yet didn't want to choose or would willingly have someone choose for me.

Choice is relevent only when you can tell the difference between a number of alternatives. Ignorance in the face of an important choice is the motivation for observation. So, when confronted with a set of alternatives that you deem to be important to your hierarchy of values, and you are ignorant about the differences, you investigate those alternatives until you can tell the difference and choose the best among them.

Something like a choice between toothpastes can seem quite trivial. A choice between careers is not.

A choice might be viewed as a Tyranny only when someone is ignorant of EVERYTHING. They would have no way to choose. I imagine this is primarily a problem for Skeptics. This just emphasizes the role that philosophy plays in life.

[pvtmorriscsa]

Being a college student, I see it all around me, especially in the form of people getting drunk to evade reality.

Drunken college students? Surely you jest. Seriously the tradition of alcohol abuse on college campuses predates the modern age. That sort of thing was going on when many of the famous generals in the War Between the States (1861-65), where young men in West Point. It begs the question that if it was happening at a strict military school, was it also happening at private colleges and universities?

"In an article titled, 'The Tyranny of Choice', Barry Schwartz, professor of social theory and social action at Swarthmore College, wrote: "Although some choice is undoubtedly better than none, more is not always better than less."

Social Theory? Social Action? I wonder if he is a socialist?

"As the gross domestic product more than doubled in the past 30 years, the proportion of the population describing itself as 'very happy' declined by about 5 percent, or some 14 million people," Schwartz writes. And more Americans are clinically depressed than at any other time in our history. Schwartz is quick to point out that no single factor explains America's blues. However, "a number of findings indicate that the explosion of choice plays an important role."

First off, how long have we been keeping statisitices on depression? Secondly, how is clinical depression defined? Finally, who decides what depression is.

I for one find it interesting that the children of the Depression era, those who fought and won the Second World War, did not complain about stress, or depression. Whereas their children, the baby boomers, who had everything handed to them find themselves afflicted with both.

Maximizers are "those who always aim to make the best possible choice" and satisficers are "those who aim for 'good enough'."

Shouldn’t a rational person always strive to always make the best possible choice? I for one always do. Of course choosing the best possible choice can sometimes mean, in the consumer product sense at any rate, choosing something that is “good enough”? For example, why buy a computer that is 10 times more powerful than what you need for $2000. When you can buy one that is exactly what you need for $200?

Through Schwartz's study, it was found that maximizers are the least happy. "Naturally, no one can check every option, but maximizers strive toward that goal, and so making a decision becomes increasingly daunting as the number of choices rises.

I for one have never found decisions daunting. Although to be honest sometimes it takes me a while to make up my mind. I must say that making complex decisions actually challenges me. A complex decision may take some time for me to mull over. It may cause me sleepless nights, but it never “daunts” me.

"In the end, they are more likely to make better objective choices than satisficers but get less satisfaction from them," Schwartz writes.

Shouldn’t a rational person always strive to make objective choices?

There are several factors that explain why more choice is not always better than less, especially for maximizers -- one being what economists call "opportunity costs," which is to say that any given choice can't be assessed in isolation from the alternatives.

I wonder if one of the factors is our looter society’s guilt of success? Furthermore isn’t choosing from many different alternatives part of making object value judgements?

Then there's adaptation, which is simply the human propensity to get used to things. And as a result of adaptability, most things turn out to be not quite as good as expected.

Add to that the effort many of us invest in the decisions we make and you've got a recipe for unhappiness. For example, "spending four months deciding what car stereo to buy is not so bad if you really enjoy that stereo for 15 years. But if you end up being excited by it for six months and then adapting, you may feel like a fool for having put in all the effort."

I was thinking to get a new car stereo two years ago. I spend a lot of time in my car, and my stereo was old and dying. I hemmed and hawed as to which one to buy, and how much to spend. Finally it got very near to death, so I went out and bought a new one. It was not the most expensive, nor the least expensive. It was of a quality that I was reasonably certain would last a good amount of time for the price I was willing to spend. Further it fulfills the exact need for which it was intended. Yes I have adapted to it. I carry CDs in my car now and not audio tapes as I did before but, I use it everyday, and it adds value to my life every day.

I think the people that get excited with, and feel like fools six months after a purchase, either made the wrong choice in the first place, or have fallen prey to Madison Avenue’s “New is Always Better” propaganda.

It appears Mom was right -- too much of anything isn't good -- even choice. Of course, we have to distinguish between meaningful choices and trivial concerns, but Schwartz's research shouldn't be dealt with too lightly.

It sounds as though you are arguing for a nanny/collectivist state

After all, at a time when "free trade" and "globalization" are held up as goods of the highest order, Schwartz's insight can help us begin to understand why some people say: "No thanks. I'd rather be happy."

“Free Trade”? Where? Cause I would sure like to know. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a single country that has real “Free” trade. Globalization of what, non-existent “free” trade? If you mean globalization of socialism, which is what globalization really means, then sure I can easily understand why some people might say, “No Thanks, I would rather be happy”

Especially when they have no idea, thanks to our looter infested education system, what it means to be happy. When they are told that man is not heroic but loathsome, self sacrifice is the moral purpose of life, productive achievement is ignoble, and reason is not absolute, can you wonder at the quandary?

[Thoyd Loki]

Choice is the fundamental of our consciousness, from the choice to focus our mind or not. I think it would be apparent that those that are "stressed" by choice (of products, career, lifestyle, and an endless list) begrudge the necessity of focusing. Some people that do resent choice avoid this by mindlessly picking whatever hits them; whimsically happy when it turns in their favor, and suspiciously malevolent when it does not.

My wife and I, for example, actively seek out specialty stores just to have more products to choose from. I'm sorry, but there are still not enough hot sauces in the world yet to choose from. I will say that choice haunts me in the field of food because there is barely a food I do not like. I am a food slut.

I find it revealing how people with different premises react to this issue. I have found the more slothful, and mentally lazy people hate choice. And also the depressed usually hate choice; I don't think it is the choice that makes people depressed, they are already that way and hate choice. Leftists hate choice, but I do not think that is an entirely different point.

The more upbeat benevolent people that I know either do not notice or sometimes are childlike excited by the plethora of choices they can be confronted with.

[BreathofLife]

It's amazing how many things people will find to blame "The state of the world" on (ie the state of how people are becoming more and more fearful and guilt ridden).

They say people don't want to make choices. They say people are depressed. They say people are scared; Or they say people are greedy, or heartless, and blame selfishness. In the first case they state the symptoms and fail to ask "why is this so?" because the simple answer is "they lack a standard of morality and therefore lack morality altogether". The second case they just want a scapegoat to pawn off their problems on.

[Fred Weiss]

This is one of those many issue which capitalism can never win for losing in the eyes of those who loathe it.

Either we have too much choice, creating a wasteful, frivolous, throw-away society or capitalist monopolists force us to choose what they want - usually over-priced, inferior products.

In the eyes of its opponents, it doesn't really matter what capitalism does. It will be wrong.

This is why attempting to defend capitalism on purely economic grounds is largely futile. It's economic success is indisputable. But it is that very success for which it is damned. This pseudo-issue of "too much choice" just being one of many examples.

You can just imagine what it's opponents would say if choice was in fact actually limited. Just look at the shrieking against Microsoft.

Fred Weiss

[Capitalism Forever]

To live qua man is to make choices. 'Nuff said.

[DPW]

Schwartz is a true left wing nut.

[Inspector]

So the guy says that

1) People are less happy today

2) People have more choices today

And just *POOF* there is an established positive relationship between the two?

And you *believe* this barking moonbat?

As others have hinted, the resentment of choice is the hallmark of either not being able to distinguish between the choices, or of a damaged phychology that wants to be fed, burped, and told what to do.

[coirecfox]

pvtmorriscsa, what is writen above is an article about the article "the tyranny of choice", not my personal thoughts. I am not arguing for anything in my post.

Inspector, NO!!! of course i dont believe any of that. I found it astonishing. My friend told me that his prof at Notre Dame was talking about how great this article is. I just posted it to provide more evidence(not that we dont have enough already) that the quality of the education my generation is receiving is declining.