There's just too much choice
#107 - exams done, now for another exam
Hi there,
Mocks done. Squashed into 8 school days, they were a good opportunity to test the waters with my exam preparation and revision strategy, as the real exams seem to be getting closer by the day.
After starting the week with 2 sets of mocks in 2 days on Tuesday and Wednesday, it’s finished calmly with some downtime as well as beginning preparation for STEP, Cambridge’s entrance exam.
Highlight of the week: Monopoly last night. We had a friend come over and a quick round of my birthday present from a few years back was wonderful. My balance seemed to yo-yo, with huge rent receipts offset by landing on some high-rent cards. Came 2nd in the end 👍
Last weekend, I went to the local M&S where Mum said ‘buy a treat if you’d like’. The hot cross buns fell in my gaze - soft squishy buns, stuffed with different flavours and finished with a bright white cross. I had 3 to choose from and a 2 for £3.50 offer: Blueberry, Cheese or Bramley Apple.
Being stood there reminded me of the ‘behavioural economics’ we’d been studying recently, and the idea that consumers are not actually fully rational thinkers, weighing up every cost and benefit before making an economic choice that maximises their benefit (or utility). Instead, they fall for whatever biases or emotions that are at play
I wasn’t intending on buying 2 packs but the offer was a nudge that made me want two. You feel as though you’re missing out on a deal if you don’t buy two.
There I was, trying to think about which flavour I hadn’t had recently (I haven’t had any 🔥 ❌ 🥧 recently), initially wanting the cheese but then realising I eat a load of cheese anyway.
In the end, I went with the blueberry and apple, 2 packets which I gladly finished on Friday after having them through the week. However, in the car home, I admittedly felt a sense of “Ooh, I’m missing out on the cheese one. It said it was Leicester cheese, which I haven’t had before…along with the cheddar, it would have been delicious.”
Welcome to the “Paradox of Choice”, a term coined by Barry Schwartz. Here’s my understanding of it all, from a range of sources.
We think choice is good for us, it is a symbol of autonomy and freedom. Freedom is itself a good thing for humans and having freedom allows us to choose what’s best for us and makes us all better off as a society.
But this doesn’t seem to be the case. One of the studies Schwartz mentions from Columbia/Stanford is that of a good store where customers could try samples and get a discount for jams. There were 2 counters one with 6 options, and the other had 24. 30% of those who visited the 6 display bought a jam, but only 3% with the larger selection.
When there are 156 pension plans to choose from, you feel like you have to choose the best one, because it is such an important decision. But, this makes you procrastinate - it seems (and is) a gigantic task and putting it off carries the cost - of less in your pensions. People suffer from paralysis, which makes it difficult to make a choice.
Here’s an even better example from Schwartz’s TED talk:
The doctor used to tell you what treatment needed to be done when you had a problem. Now, the doctor tells you, "Well, we could do A, or we could do B. A has these benefits and these risks. B has these benefits and these risks. What do you want to do?" And you say, "Doc, what should I do?" And the doc says, "A has these benefits and risks, and B has these benefits and risks. What do you want to do?" And you say, "If you were me, Doc, what would you do?" And the doc says, "But I'm not you." The result? We call it "patient autonomy," which makes it sound like a good thing, but what it is a shifting of the burden and the responsibility [and anxiety] for decision-making from somebody who knows stuff, the doctor, to somebody who knows nothing and is almost certainly sick and thus, not in the best shape to be making decisions.
I found this most recently with university choices, and especially trying to make a choice between Oxford and Cambridge and then the colleges at Cambridge. Even more recent was this when Esther and I tried to figure out what we could achieve in these next 3 months, scarce time, amid a huge list of ideas, many of them worthwhile. We’ve highlighted a few, but inevitably, there are some brilliant ones that we won’t be able to accomplish.
“We end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from” because you are left to imagine the positive aspects to the alternatives that you missed out on.”
So you may in fact feel resentful, and regretful and blame yourself and the perceived significant opportunity costs. These hypothetical tradeoffs are considered in terms of missed opportunities, instead of focusing on which option maximises utility. The regret and opportunity costs takes away from the satisfaction you got from the decision you made.
There is also the “escalation of expectation”: because you chose out of so many options, you now have a higher expectation of the product’s suitability for you, which it may not live up to. But with the increase in choice, if your ketchup isn’t the best for you, it’s easier to imagine that you could’ve made a better choice, leading to self-blame.
What I got was good, but it wasn't perfect. And so I compared what I got to what I expected, and what I got was disappointing in comparison to what I expected. Adding options to people's lives can't help but increase the expectations people have about how good those options will be. And what that's going to produce is less satisfaction with results, even when they're good results.
This means that while there may be some people who are maximisers, trying to make every decision the best that could be made (that’s me!), others are satisficers, someone who has criteria but isn’t worried about the possibility that there may be a better option.
Clearly, there is a point of diminishing returns even for choice, as is the case with other phenomena like food. Summarising the 4 costs to choice that make us miserables, according ot Schwartz, are regret, opportunity costs, escalation of expectations and self-blame.
That was a good excuse to watch a TED talk and do some research on an idea I’d heard of a little before, hope that was as interesting to you as I found it.
Podcast of the week🎙️
The Intelligence: Will Apple’s customers share its Vision?
I’ve just realised the pun. A great podcast style that covers 3 stories in a good amount of detail, I found the first two quite interesting.
Thing I’m grateful for this week 🙏
Mr Götschel, one of our invigilators and an ex-German teacher at the school. I, rather stupidly, misplaced my pencil case before my final exam, Statistics and Mechanics. Stranded with all but a pen, I had to rely on a pencil, ruler and a (very ancient) calculator he picked out for me. In the end, I found the pencil case straight after the exam 🙌
Quote of the week 💬
You are confined only by the walls you build yourself. - Andrew Murphy
Wishing you well to make the best out of the shortest month of the year,
Adi
Sources for the post:
https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice/
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/oct/21/choice-stressing-us-out-dating-partners-monopolies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice