"The more choice and the freedom in choosing people have, the more welfare they have and the happier they will be." This is the basic premise about the freedom of choice and it's hard to argue that this isn't true. But is it really so?
The research shows that the net feelings (good feelings minus bad feelings) drop as the number of options increases.
The main reasons Schwartz mentions are:
- The more options there are, the easier it is to regret about anything disappointing related to the choice we made.
- Opportunity cost subtracts from the satisfaction of the choice we made, even when what we chose is terrific. Furthermore, when there are lots of alternatives, it is easy to imagine the attractive sides of other options.
- The overal expectation about how good a thing we are choosing should be increases as the number of options increases. We are thus more likely to be disappointed with whatever our choice is.
Therefore, the next time you have to choose, just relax, go with the gut feeling and enjoy your choice. Remember that you would have had doubts even if you had chosen something else.
The video is very entertaining with many funny moments.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html
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