LIKE most men, Barry Schwartz did not expect to feel inspired on a clothes-shopping trip. “I avoid buying jeans; I wear one pair until it disintegrates,” says Schwartz, a psychology professor at Swarthmore College, in Pennsylvania.
“The last time I had bought a pair there was just one style. But then I was asked if I wanted this fit or that fit, or this colour or that. I intended to be out for five minutes but it took an hour. I ended up with jeans that fitted better than any I’d ever had, but feeling worse. After all that work and research I expected those jeans to fit perfectly, and when they didn’t I was disappointed.”
The incident planted an idea in his head: did more choice always mean greater satisfaction? “I’d always assumed that choice was good, and more choice was better. My experience got me thinking; how many others felt like me?”
The result was a widely cited study that punched a corrective hole in the assumption that more is always better. Drawing on the psychology of economics, which looks at how people choose what to buy, Schwartz devised a questionnaire to distinguish “maximisers” from “satisficers”. Broadly, maximisers are keen to make the best possible choices, and often conduct exhaustive research to ensure that their purchases cannot be bettered. Satisficers — a term coined by the late psychologist and economist Herbert A. Simon — are the make-do brigade, delighted with items that are simply good enough for the job.
Thousands of volunteers were asked how strongly they agreed or disagreed with 13 statements such as “When shopping, I have a hard time finding clothing that I really love”, and “I often fantasise about living in ways that are quite different from my actual life”. Those with high ratings, who generally agreed more than disagreed, were classified as maximisers. Despite their painstaking research, they tended to be the least satisfied with their decisions.
Volunteers also filled out questionnaires that measure wellbeing. The results vindicated the instinct that had nagged Schwartz since his dispiriting jeans-buying expedition. Maximisers tended to be less happy, less optimistic and more depressed. More importantly, those at the top end of the maximisation scale bordered on the clinically depressed. Schwartz, 57, has found eager lay and expert audiences for his thesis, explored more deeply in his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, which has just been published in America. It will appear here this summer.
Contrary to what politicians and salesmen think, Schwartz says, the relentless growth in choice is in danger of blighting our lives. “I’m not saying no choice is good. But we make at least 200 decisions every day, and I don’t think there’s much more room in people’s lives for any more.”
His insight may help to explain the peculiar paradox of the affluent West — psychologists and economists are perplexed by the fact that our sense of wellbeing has not risen in tandem with prosperity. In fact, our ability to demand whatever we want whenever we want it has instead led to rising expectations and the fear that, by favouring one option, we are missing out on a better one. The anxiety-inducing quest for perfection pervades every area of life, Schwartz says, from buying soap powder — should one buy liquid? — to selecting a career and even a romantic partner. The more choice there is, the harder it is to decide. Certain decisions, such as degree subject, automatically close off other avenues, and some of us are then tormented by “opportunity costs”, or the thought of what else might have been.
Schwartz says: “The problem is that when you make a decision and it’s disappointing, it may actually have been a good decision, just not as good as you had hoped. For example, you could choose a pension fund that gives you a 5 per cent return rather than the 7 per cent you had hoped for. In fact, 5 per cent is still good.”
One fact that governments might like to note is that people seem more inclined to buy something if there are fewer, not more, options. If that’s true for jams — indeed, the study on jams inspired Schwartz to pursue the choice issue academically — it is probably true of pension funds.
“If there are few options, the world doesn’t expect you to make the perfect decision. But when there are thousands it’s hard not to think there’s a perfect one out there, and that you’ll find it if you look hard enough. When people don’t find it they blame themselves. If you feel like this continually, it can lead to depression.”
He sums it up elegantly in next month’s Scientific American: “If the experience of disappointment is relentless, if every choice you make fails to live up to expectation and aspirations, and if you consistently take personal responsibility for the disappointments, the trivial looms larger and larger, and the conclusion that you cannot do anything right becomes devastating. Though depression has many sources — and while the relation among choice, maximising and depression needs more study — there is good reason to believe that overwhelming choice at least contributes to the epidemic of unhappiness spreading through society.”
Even his students seem oppressed rather than liberated by the fact that they can choose careers over marriage in early adulthood. “The same problems exist for big decisions as for little ones,” Schwartz says. “In my day everybody knew the plan was to pair up as soon as possible and start producing babies. It didn’t occur to us that there was any other way. Now anything is possible. My students torment themselves about whether they should give priority to their careers or their love lives.”
If you think that internet shopping will stop you despairing, think again: “You want to buy something and you look at three websites. How long will it take to look at one more? Two minutes? It’s only a click. Before you know it you’ve spent three hours trying to decide which £10 item to buy. It’s crazy. You’ve blown another evening that you could have spent with your partner or children, and you feel bad.”
Schwartz, who describes himself as a natural satisficer (his well-fitting, but imperfect, jeans bothered him for 20 minutes), says reining in our tendency to maximise will make us jollier. His tips sound like homilies from a past era. Teach yourself to be happy with “good enough”. Let go of certain choices; buy the same digital camera that your friend has. Stick with what you know. Turn the other cheek when the 289th breakfast cereal arrives at your supermarket. Never visit more than two shops.
“But the most important advice is ‘lower your expectations’,” Shwartz says. “No one wants to hear it because we all believe that perfection awaits the wise decision-maker. Life isn’t necessarily like that.”
