Barry Schwartz (2) (1946–)

I’ve based this review just based on the Blinkist summary of the book. A summary inevitably misses much but I’ve found the Blinkist summaries to be remarkably good at distilling the essence of the book. And if I find it sufficiently stimulating, I’ll purchase and read the full version. In the meantime, Here ar a few extracts from the summary that seemed to help capture the book:
We now face a demand to make choices that is unparalleled in human history....Even Swarthmore College, a small school with only 1,350 students, offers about 120 different courses to meet the general education requirement, from which students must select just nine......We’re also now presented with a massive selection of different kinds of health insurance, retirement plans and medical care.......The amount of choices available to us has increased over the past decades........
Today, we are constantly offered new options that require more effort from us than ever before......New options within finance and healthcare, for example, demand extensive research, and most people simply don’t feel they have even the most basic skills or knowledge to make wise, informed decisions about such complex areas of life. The last decades have seen burgeoning support for and confidence in the free market, shifting the burden of decision making away from the government and onto the individual. That’s all very well for the more trivial financial decisions in life. But when it comes to choosing the right health insurance, retirement plan or medical care, the stakes for the individual are astronomical.....[Variety] makes it harder to choose wisely and can transform our freedom of choice into a crushing burden.....Even when choosing from just a handful of alternatives, people’s decision making is susceptible to error.
We know that how the experience felt to us when it was at its best or worst, and when it ended is the memory that we retain best. ....Also, our predictions about how a choice will make us feel are rarely accurate......Those students forced to predict what they would feel like eating over the next three weeks turned out less happy with their choice than those choosing for just a week.....This tendency to make errors can only worsen as the number and complexity of decisions increases.
Whichever you choose, the decision involves passing up the opportunities the other option would’ve provided. Unfortunately, [these] opportunity costs reduce our overall satisfaction in the choices we end up making.....Some participants were shown an individual magazine, while others saw the same magazine alongside others. In almost every case, the respondents placed a lower value on the magazine when they saw it next to the others.
So, whenever we have to make decisions involving opportunity costs, we’ll feel less satisfied with our choice than we would if the alternatives were unknown to us.
Consider this study: Two groups encountered a variety of jams at a sampling table. One group could sample only 6 different jams, and the other group, 24. The group who could sample from the larger array were much less likely to ultimately buy one of the jams than the group that were presented with just six......As this shows, increased choice reduces both our power to decide and any pleasure to be gained from what we actually choose.
Human beings, like all other animals, respond less and less to any given event as the event persists–we simply get used to things.....This process is known as adaptation, Lottery winners were no happier than people in general, and......accident victims still judged themselves to be happy (though somewhat less happy than people in general).
The American GDP–a primary measure of prosperity–has more than doubled in the last thirty years, while the American “happiness quotient” has been in constant decline.....So, what’s behind such widespread unhappiness? Put simply, we’re spoiled for choice.
As psychologist Martin Seligman has discovered, failure or lack of control leads to depression if a person explains the cause for the failure as global (“I fail in all areas of life”), chronic (“I will always be a failure”) and personal (“It seems to be only me who always fails”).
This type of excessive self-blame thrives in a world of unlimited choice......And, apparently, we have no one to blame but ourselves......We blame ourselves excessively when we fail to choose wisely.
And since excessive self-blame can lead to depression, there is good reason to believe that our society’s abundance of choice is correlated with the modern epidemic of unhappiness.
As a decision strategy, maximizing [making sure that you research and choose the best] is an overwhelming task since maximizers aspire to choose only the best. If you’re a maximizer, every option has the potential to snare you into an endless tangle of considerations......Maximizers also exert much effort on trying to imagine all other possibilities.....Not only do maximizers overwhelm themselves in this way, but once they’ve finally overcome the difficulty of choosing, and actually make their choice, they’re more likely than others to feel unsatisfied with it.....For this reason, maximizers are especially susceptible to “buyer’s remorse.”....In a world of infinite choices, it is difficult and emotionally exhausting to be a maximizer, never settling for less than the best.
We all know people who can choose quickly and decisively. These people are satisficers
It means searching until you find the option that meets your standards, and stopping at that point.....A satisficer’s world is divided into two categories: options that meet their standard and options that don’t. So when making a choice, they only have to investigate the options within the first category.....And since they don’t strive for perfection when making decisions, they won’t spend time thinking about the hypothetical perfect world in which options exist that offer complete satisfaction......This makes it much easier for them to be satisfied with their choices, and with life in general.
The good news is that most of us have the capacity to be satisficers, even those who consistently feel overwhelmed by choice. All that’s required is to let go of any expectation that “the best” is attainable......our increased affluence and freedom is costing us a substantial decrease in the quality and quantity of social relations, which causes a significant decline in our well-being. Such relations are essential to our psychological health ..... Significant social involvement in families, deep friendships, civic associations and the like, means subordinating the self in order to keep the connections strong.
But how can we achieve that? [becoming a satisficer]. By using rules to constrain ourselves and limit the decisions we face, we can make life more manageable and decrease the likelihood of psychological distress.....For instance, if you adopt the rule that you will never cheat on your partner, you can eliminate painful and tempting decisions that might confront you later on.
By working on restricting our options, we would be able to choose less and feel better.
The key message in this book: Everyday decisions have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming range of choices that modern society presents us with. As the number of choices increases, so do the negative effects choice can have on our psychological well-being. The more options we have, the more difficult it becomes to make a wise decision, and the less satisfaction we will derive from what we actually choose. Therefore, it seems like some degree of voluntary constraint would make everyone better off. By simply choosing less, chances are that we would be more happy.
Become a satisficer: Appreciating and embracing “good enough” will simplify decision making and increase satisfaction. Therefore, think about occasions in life when you’ve settled comfortably for “good enough,” and closely examine how you chose in those areas. Then, start cultivating this “satisficing” strategy in more and more aspects of life.
My take on the book. A fairly simple concept which he has built into a book length. But I think thye Blinkist summary version has given me sufficient information to understand what the concept is about. And I tend to agree. Choice can be stultifying and it’s probsbly worthwhile trying to become a satisficer. (I think I fall into the category of the Maximizer and can see that it certainly has drawbacks. So maybe I’ll try the advice. Also thought making some simple rules for behaviour reduces the stress from choice. So, actually some good advice here. Four stars from me.… (more)