With 20 different styles of jeans to choose from, 24 flavours of jam, 38 types of breakfast cereal and 22 models of mobile phone, we freeze and cannot pick anything at all.

The condition has been identified by Barry Schwartz,an American psychologist who believes that the seemingly endless expansion of consumer choice on the high street is making us thoroughly miserable. Our problem is not that we do not have enough things to make us happy, but that we have too many.

Professor Schwartz, who will outline his theory at the Royal Society of Arts in London next week, has identified two consumer types.

“Maximisers” always seek out the best, while “satisficers” settle for what is good enough.

Satisficers stop searching as soon as they have found something that serves their purpose. They go home happy and do not look back. Maximisers, in contrast, are compelled to test out everything, take longer to make decisions and, although objectively they may end up with better results, they are usually less satisfied with what they get.

“With so many options, maximisers feel there is no excuse for finding anything less than perfection, and when less than perfection is what they end up with, they feel the fault must be theirs,” he says. “They are also less happy with life in general, less optimistic and more depressed.”

Maximisers are also less able to make any kind of decision at all. Professor Schwartz has found that shoppers were ten times as likely to buy jam when only six varieties were on display as when there were 24. Similarly, but more seriously, when the number of ways in which people could save for their retirement went up, the likelihood that they would choose any at all went down.

The solution, the professor believes, is simple. Expect less. Settle for what is good enough. And then relax.

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