
When It's Bad to Have Good Choices - nkurz
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/bad-good-choices
======
Throwaway823
There are a couple of popular TED talks about choice.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...](http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice)

It's something to keep in mind with your development work as well. Let's say
you create an application to minify javascript. Your app has an input field,
and a button that says 'Go', and that's it. Very simple, no confusion, people
love it.

However, you notice 5% of people don't use the app, because they want to keep
comments in their minified code, and you don't include that option. A lot of
developers decide they'll add a checkbox to include comments, because now
everyone can be happy. It doesn't quite work that way, because now the 95% of
people that don't want comments see this checkbox, and start to question
themselves. Wait, why do people want comments included in their minified code,
should I be checking this box? Is there something I'm doing wrong? Do most
people check the box or not, I'd like to know to validate my decision,
otherwise I feel uneasy. The more options you add, the more this has an
effect.

In the end, maybe the 95% are feeling so uneasy, 10% of them leave to another
app, that just has a 'Go' button again, so they feel confident, and more
happy. So, by adding the checkbox to include comments, the 5% of people that
were asking for the feature now start using the app, but you lose 10% of the
original audience because of the additional choice.

It's a difficult balance, and you really need to focus on the majority, and be
careful about building out features the minority are requesting. If you look
at apps like Twitter or Snapchat (or Yo, on the extreme side, and not yet
proven), they succeed by limiting the amount of choice available to users.
Many developers would have added more options, or in the case of Twitter given
users the ability to write longer tweets because it seems harmless, but at the
same time, it would have caused the businesses to fail.

~~~
userbinator
Personally, while the research is interesting, I think it's also being _far
too overused_ as justification to remove/not add options. The common
counterargument of "just use another product that does have the option you
want" often turns out to be as fruitless - that other product may not have
some option you want (that this one does), due to the same reasoning!

I also fundamentally disagree that removing choices is a good thing - the
research says it makes (most?) people feel better, which suggests that they
don't want to think about making any choices because it is somehow difficult
for them and causes anxiety. Logically, this means they would be most
satisfied and happy if they didn't have to make _any_ choices or do any
thinking at all, and something/someone else made all the decisions for them -
the equivalent of having no freedom or control over one's life. Is this really
what we want society to become?

"Making choices is hard, so just give up"? To me, that's where it looks like
things are heading, and quite frankly it's a rather disturbing trend. I most
definitely do not want to have nearly every decision in my life made by
someone else, and find the anxiety/difficulty of the process to be absolutely
normal.

Maybe there is a good balance somewhere in between, but I'm definitely
strongly biased in the direction of being able to have the freedom to make
choices, no matter how difficult, and take control of my life.

~~~
Throwaway823
There is balance but it's not easy to find.

If I visit a restaurant, and they only serve chicken, that's kind of limited.
Now, they give me the option of beef or chicken. Ok, this is a decision I can
make, and be confident in selecting. Now, what happens if they ask whether I
would like northwestern chicken, southern chicken, grain fed chicken, or
korean chicken? Huh? I'm not a master of chicken, just give me the best one.

We hit a point where I no longer have a strong opinion, and this is where my
confidence drops, and I start to question myself. This means they've given me
too much choice.

This isn't the same for everyone, someone out there knows their chicken inside
and out, and they have a preference for one specific type. If you want to
cater your restaurant towards those people then give them that choice.
However, you'll be scaring away the average person at the same time.

For the same reason it's difficult to make an application for casual and
advanced users. Pick your audience, and that'll give you some guidance on the
appropriate amount of choice to include.

~~~
jodrellblank
How would you like me to give you the best one? Wine first, delay, then meal?
Wine then meal with no delay? Drinks and chicken brought together on a tray?

Cutlery wrapped in a serviette or not? Chicken with sauce or sauce in a jug?
Chicken covered in sauce, or with some on it, or with the sauce around it?
What temperature sauce? How would you like the plate rotated - chicken towards
you, or veg towards you? What kind of veg? How big?

Decisions are fractal, everywhere you look there are potentially huge numbers
of decisions that someone, somewhere, might plausibly care about, but most
people don't.

Beyond where you don't have a strong opinion (I guess one chicken option might
be better, but I don't know which) and your confidence drops, you climb back
up to a place where you have a strong opinion again and your opinion is "it
doesn't matter [to me]", and from there onwards it's not a matter of "I don't
know which to chose" it's a matter of "STOP WASTING MY LIFE WITH THIS
POINTLESS NONSENSE".

I suspect that the internet puts people on both sides of this gap together,
far more often, more quickly, and with less structure, than previous human
history has.

~~~
jngreenlee
This. > "STOP WASTING MY LIFE WITH THIS POINTLESS NONSENSE".

I work in datacenter solutions sales, and the majority of my customers know
what they want in terms of vendor/product series. However, they need our help
for specific performance and capacity sizing, as well as adjusting to fit a
budget. This probably it true for about 95% of customers.

However, there is another 5%, that simply want a good solution for their
needs. They don't care how, and if they're smart, they have some specific
business requirements to share. These ones are EASY to upset as displayed in
the comment above if we 'waste' their time asking detailed option questions
they really don't care about.

To be successful in this, you have to triage early and set the customer
engagement on the proper path!

------
paulsutter
When faced with a difficult decision, it probably doesn't matter which choice
you take. Emotionally it's difficult to accept this. But logically it's easy:

\- If one of the two choices was clearly better, it would be an easy decision

\- But it is difficult. Therefore, neither of the two choices is clearly
better.

\- Therefore, it doesn't matter much which you choose.

This doesn't work for people who feel irrational regret (ie, regretting a
decision that turned out badly because of information that was not known at
the time of the decision). Yes, irrational regret is very common. But it's
just another logical failing that can be overcome.

If you still feel anxiety when forced to choose between two good choices, go
visit a third world country.

~~~
lotharbot
> _" neither of the two choices is clearly better"_

"Clarity" is dependent on what level of information you already have and what
analysis you've already done.

In some circumstances, you've already done whatever investigation, research,
and thinking can reasonably be done. If the choice is still hard, _then_ the
choice is likely to be of similar value either way and you may as well choose
arbitrarily.

But in other circumstances, there's still investigation, research, or thinking
that can be done (at a level of effort which is reasonable based on the
importance of the decision.) In that case, one choice or the other may become
clearly better if you are patient and diligent in the decision-making process.
So be as patient as the decision warrants.

~~~
baddox
Yeah, I don't think paulsutter's post holds up to much scrutiny, except in the
limited case where you have to make a decision immediately, or in the near
future before you have time to do any meaningful research or calculation on
the problem.

A problem is difficult when its potential consequences are serious and the
best option is not obvious. But the best option can be non-obvious for two
very different reasons: either it requires a lot of information and thus a lot
of work to gather that information (like choosing a medical treatment), or it
depends on randomness or other variables outside your control and
understanding (like choose your lottery numbers, assuming someone gives you a
lottery ticket).

For the latter case, it's pretty clear that you can choose randomly and
shouldn't worry about your decision. For the former case, it's reasonable to
"worry" in the sense that you should feel an urgency to gather the required
information efficiently. Of course, it's not really that simple, because you
have to optimize the cost of gathering information against the potential cost
or gain from the decision itself. Also, the two reasons from the last
paragraph are more like a continuum, because "randomness" is often _effective_
randomness, i.e. you can't feasibly predict the outcomes despite them being
deterministic.

------
wmkn
This article focuses on the choice you have as a consumer. Which brand, which
flavor, which stack of hay?

But I observe a similar crippling effect when working on software. Every step
along the way of producing a software product involves making an incredible
amount of choices. Choices like, 'what platform?', 'what programming
language?', 'which algorithm?', etc. I believe that the the freedom we have as
a software engineers forces us to make more choices than in any other
engineering discipline.

There is a certain anxiety involved in make such engineering choices. Will
this choice work out in the end, or am I going to waste a lot of time
implementing and later reversing this for the other option?

~~~
godDLL
Anecdote/data-point 90% of my side-projects never got out of "playing with the
tech stack" phase.

It is definitely not optimal, but is pretty common methinks.

------
scotty79
In Poland there is very famous children's rhymed short story about a donkey
regarding this paradox of choice, so polish children are very early confronted
with this paradox and warned about possible consequences (donkey dies of
hunger in the end). Rhymed form makes it stick so good that we even have a
saying for describing person experiencing paradox of choice that is literally
the first line of this story.

Story:
[http://pl.wikisource.org/wiki/Chciwo%C5%9B%C4%87_os%C5%82a](http://pl.wikisource.org/wiki/Chciwo%C5%9B%C4%87_os%C5%82a)

Saying:
[http://pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/osio%C5%82kowi_w_%C5%BC%C5%82o...](http://pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/osio%C5%82kowi_w_%C5%BC%C5%82oby_dano)

------
alexvr
I spent months of my freshman year highly anxious for similar first-world
reasons. I excel at and enjoy lots of things and felt like school was making
me commit to one field. I would spend days very inactive, stressing out about,
for example, the pros and cons of being a game programmer versus an embedded
software engineer or something. I could never seem to settle on one area. I
thought game programming was a waste of engineering talent, but I found
everything else about it extremely appealing. Luckily I'm over that crap now,
as I accept what I knew all along: that it's not what you major in that
defines you. It's what you do in life that matters. It also helps to be in a
field that applies to virtually everything else (CS). I'd go even more crazy
if I were in some highly specialized field. Strangely, I'd say the best cure
for this is a brief existential crisis.

------
gone35
_" (...) a concept that the Swarthmore University psychologist Barry Schwartz
would then popularize and rename as the paradox of choice."_

Last time I checked, there is no such a thing as "Swarthmore University":
Barry Schwartz is affiliated with Swarthmore _College_ instead [1,2,3].

Might seem pedantic, but the New Yorker of yore would never let such a slip
--online or not. Such editing.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More_Is_Less)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Schwartz_(psychologist)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Schwartz_\(psychologist\))

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarthmore_College)

~~~
Tloewald
It is a pretty big error by New Yorker standards. I expect it will be fixed.

------
taurath
Sounds familiar. I wish the article had some sort of suggestion or hint as to
what to do when you're really prone to anxiety. I have several very good
options in my life right now and have made a tenative decision on what to do,
but I'm finding I'm crippled by anxiety over my decision.

~~~
isomorphic
paulsutter gave a good answer to this elsewhere in the comments. But I would
add this: All other things being equal (or roughly equal), pick one at random.

Sure, there's opportunity cost, but there are also costs way beyond the time
you take fretting over a decision. You said it yourself: You're "crippled" by
anxiety. How is that better than making a random decision? Or just going with
your gut?

~~~
baddox
I think it's naive to assume that simply making a random decision would remove
or reduce anxiety. Anxiety doesn't only come from the fear of regretting your
decisions; it also comes from the fear of receiving a negative outcome, even
if that outcome was "chosen" by a coin flip or a third party. Hence people are
anxious to receive news after a job interview, or a call about a loved one's
medical condition, despite both having nothing to do with their own decisions.

~~~
dredmorbius
It's not that making a random decision will remove or reduce anxiety. _It 's
that making a non-random choice 1) won't improve the predicted outcome and 2)
won't reduce or remove the anxiety either._

Given the alternatives of either 1) not making a decision, 2) drawing out the
decision for a long time, or 3) failing to act in time on the option, simply
making a random initial commitment addresses the decisionmaking aspect.

Many decisions are capable of being reversed or changed later. If you're ever
in a situation where you _must_ decide (stay or jump from a burning building,
say), there's still likely to be an option which is least bad. Even those who
jumped from the WTC on 9/11 were making a decision. The outcome wasn't
optimal, but in the circumstances, it may well have been preferable to the
alternative.

------
JacobIrwin
I submit that "anxiety" here could be better defined as: the mental taxation
of evaluating the opportunity cost for turning down each of the available
alternatives, given a person's position on Maslow's hierarchy of needs

------
louischatriot
This article really resonnates with me, having had to choose between two very
interesting jobs. It took me 2 weeks to decide and was a really anxious
period, whereas without a choice I would have taken either without a second
thought.

------
jeorgun
It seems to me that, in pretty much every field, the most rewarding tasks,
often with the most highly regarded results, are the most constrained— rhyming
schemes and meter in poetry, immutability in programming, whatever.

It could just be freedom from the anxiety of choice (and just admiration for
the creator's ability to succeed despite these constraints on the part of the
audience). I feel like there's more to it than that, though.

------
scotty79
> Lipowski thought of Buridan’s ass: an apocryphal donkey that finds itself
> standing between two equally appealing stacks of hay.

> ...

> While Lipowski’s work received some immediate wide attention, it soon fell
> into relative obscurity.

> ...

> Schwartz would then popularize and rename as the paradox of choice

No wonder. It's so much easier to be told that you are experiencing a paradox
than to be told that you are behaving like an ass. Buridan’s or not.

------
Sealy
Cognitive dissonance is a similar concept that is not new.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance)

As quoted from that article:

"Cognitive dissonance is also useful to explain and manage post-purchase
concerns. If a consumer feels that an alternate purchase would have been
better, it is likely he/she will not buy the product again. To counter this,
marketers have to convince buyers constantly that the product satisfies their
need and thereby helps reduce their cognitive dissonance, ensuring repurchase
of the same brand in the future."

Sounds like the writer is referring to cognitive dissonance.

Leon Festinger published his work on cognitive dissonance in 1959 making his
discovery 11 years before Lipowski's publication in 1970 (as referenced by the
article). Festinger in my mind is the godfather of this theory. Anyone agree?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger)

------
scotty79
> The choices between those objects that they valued most highly were both the
> most positive and the most anxiety-filled. The more choices they had—the
> study was repeated with up to six items per choice—the more anxious they
> felt.

This sounds like nothing more than loss aversion. Until you make the choice
you have opportunity to acquire some valuable things. When you make the choice
you've lost all the things you didn't choose.

This leads to easy ways of alleviating anxiety. You just need to mentally
devalue all the things you are supposed to choose from and when you make the
choice, immediately devalue things you haven't chosen even more (getting hyped
over the thing you just chose won't help because anxiety comes not for the
lack of appreciation of what you gained but for too much appreciation for the
things you've lost opportunity to obtain).

~~~
judk
Sadly this is the sort of rationalizing that uunderlies racism/tribalism:
hating people who are different feels better than feeling left out of their
goodness.

------
unchocked
This validates something I've suspected for a while: that decisiveness is
valuable in and of itself.

~~~
jodrellblank
From 'Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman':

 _The lieutenant takes me to the colonel and repeats my remark. The colonel
says, "Just five minutes," and then he goes to the window and he stops and
thinks. That's what they're very good at -- making decisions. I thought it was
very remarkable how a problem of whether or not information as to how the bomb
works should be in the Oak Ridge plant had to be decided and could be decided
in five minutes. So I have a great deal of respect for these military guys,
because I never can decide anything very important in any length of time at
all.

In five minutes he said, "All right, Mr. Feynman, go ahead."_

\- [http://quanta-gaia.org/reviews/books/FeymanJoking.html](http://quanta-
gaia.org/reviews/books/FeymanJoking.html)

------
lloeki
For those who prefer video to text, Barry Schwartz (mentioned in the article)
gave an insightful TED talk about this, as has Sheena Iyengar[1] (but I didn't
know so haven't watched it... yet). Baba Shiv has an interesting take[2].

[0]:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...](http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice)

[1]:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing)

[2]:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/baba_shiv_sometimes_it_s_good_to_gi...](http://www.ted.com/talks/baba_shiv_sometimes_it_s_good_to_give_up_the_driver_s_seat)

------
kelukelugames
I was ecstatic when I got my first job offer. Then I got a second. And a few
more rolled in. Choosing became the most stressful part of the job hunt.

The companies I didn't pick made monster gains in the stock market --30% in
one month.

Cry me a river, right?

~~~
gtremper
I feel realizing that one's stressing over "first world" types of problems
just makes it worse by adding shame to the mix.

------
blue1
This article is a bit shallow. I recommend Schwarz's book, _The Paradox of
Choice_ ; it's a fun read and I found it very insightful.

------
sitkack
The decisions are difficult because the gradient between them is low. So as
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8124172](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8124172)
says, just pick one.

Humans are great a ranking from a low number of choices. Too many choices or
of similar quality and our ranking mechanisms break down.

------
ggchappell
I wonder if this phenomenon might be the primary factor in certain kinds of
delayed marriage. I'm thinking, for example, of two people in their late 20s
who have been dating for 5 years, figure marriage is in their future, but
don't "feel ready".

------
Zigurd
The article doesn't distinguish between freedom to choose, and getting a
ridiculous amount of trivial choice blasted at you in order to sell things.
The latter is unnatural and psychologically abusive, and could easily cause
stress.

But even supposed political freedom may be overrated. A demarchy might very
well be better-performing, more representative, and less corruptible than an
elected government. After all, term limits, devolution to more local
government, and other "reforms" are just an approximation of demarchy. We sure
don't get representation from our current system, but we do give
authoritarians a veneer of legitimacy by voting. That's pretty stressful.

This is relevant to the Internet because the value and effectiveness of ads
are an ongoing controversy, while at the same time funding much of what we
use.

------
ctchocula
I've felt this when deciding what kind of yogurt to buy at the supermarket.
There were simply too many varieties, so I often ended up not getting any,
because I couldn't be bothered to decide.

------
dmnd
This is why I hate that cinemas offer a choice between 2D and 3D. I just want
to see whatever the director intended and not have to try to hunt down which
version is 'better'.

Offering a choice makes going to the movies socially into an awkward
experience. Inevitably there are people with diverging strong opinions and
suddenly a social get together turns into dispute mediation. I think that if
there was only one option, people would just deal with it.

Now I dread inviting certain people to the movies because I want a social
experience without endlessly dragging up the 2D vs 3D debate.

------
hartator
It's me or there are a lot of articles from the newyorker which make the HN
top?

~~~
edmccard
>there are a lot of articles from the newyorker which make the HN top?

There has probably been a higher frequency lately since the New Yorker has
gone no-paywall for the summer.

------
dredmorbius
I see a lot of decisionmaking especially as it's foisted on the public in
commercial choices to be largely _false_ alternatives.

That is, there are a large number of options presented, under the guise of
"choice is good", for which the ultimate effects of the outcome are "it
doesn't matter".

The choices are also often not presented in a way that makes discriminating
between alternatives straightforward. I'm reminded of a financial news program
whose sponsor for a time was a credit card company bragging about "over 3,000
choices for consumers" in credit card options. That is, frankly, stupidly
excessive.

But there are ways to present choices in a way which offers a very high level
of tailoring of options _without_ overwhelming the user with those options. I
like to use the example of automobile heating/cooling controls common in the
1980s-1990s (the tendency toward thermostatic controls is changing this now).

For American car manufacturers, the preferred style was a heat control lever
which went from low to high, a fan switch, usually with "flow", "lo", "med"
,and "hi" settings, and a vent + AC selector. This would allow for dash,
floor, or defrost vents to be selected, as well as another _addition_ set of
vent settings in which AC was enabled. The presentation always struck me as
confusing, and there were a number of vent/AC settings which weren't
reachable.

This is pretty typical:
[http://www.autopartsdb.net/images/productimg/C/CX1884.JPG](http://www.autopartsdb.net/images/productimg/C/CX1884.JPG)

Imports from Japan and Europe typically had four controls: a fan switch, a
heat slider or dial, and a vent selector, plus an independent AC control. The
method seemed a lot more sensible to me: are you hot (turn up the heat) or
cold (turn on the AC), how much air do you want flowing (fan) and where do you
want it (vent selector). Figuring out how to set the controls always seemed
far more intuitive to me than the American controls.

Typical:
[http://www.autoecu.com/images/ebay/01%20-%2007%20TOYOTA%20HI...](http://www.autoecu.com/images/ebay/01%20-%2007%20TOYOTA%20HIGHLANDER%20MANUAL%20CLIMATE%20CONTROL%20REBUILD.jpg)

One more recent modification is that often the AC is automatically activated
(and sometimes cannot be _deactivated_ ) when defrost is selected, as the
humidity reduction tends to improve defrost performance.

There's a similar design issue I've noticed particularly with clothes washers,
where one style seems to specify the type of article you're washing: "knits",
"delicates", "colors", "whites", and the other the specific wash conditions
you want: water temperature, a

See:
[http://content.aolstatic.net/ProductImages/rvLarge/ZWG6141P_...](http://content.aolstatic.net/ProductImages/rvLarge/ZWG6141P_WH_WashingMachine_CP1_AR_L.jpg)
(article descriptions)

vs. load size, temperature, options, and agitator settings:
[http://www.ajmadison.com/ajmadison/images/large/GTWP1800DWW_...](http://www.ajmadison.com/ajmadison/images/large/GTWP1800DWW_control.jpg)

My observation is that I know the _settings_ I want to apply, and where
"outcomes" controls are specified, I've got to translate these into the
_settings_ I hope to achieve. What I prefer are options which allow me to
select for settings, preferably along a range (e.g., heater intensity, fan
power).

Another point is that in consumer goods, the distinctions between products
very nearly always simply doesn't matter.

In a Starbucks world, there's a coffee roaster I love which has an
exceptionally simple product line. Light roast. Dark roast. Regular.
Decaffinated. And you can get your beans whole or ground if you like. But
basically four choices. The beans are, of course, excellent.

I've elected for choice in many food purchases by _avoiding mainstream grocery
stores_ (the news late this week of P&G killing off a bunch of brands strikes
me as comically irrelevant). While I've fewer "options" than MegaMonSantoFoods
when shopping at Trader Joes, what I _do_ have are generally simpler, less
expensive, less processed, and healthier products. I've long since abandoned
prepared breakfast cereals for oats (and add my own nuts, dried fruit, or
other ingredients as I prefer). Fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, dairy, and
eggs are generally non-branded. Store products for cleaning, or vinegar and
baking soda (both of which are surprisingly difficult to find in
straighforward bulk forms) work fine. And the costs are lower.

My personal sense is that branding jumped the shark somewhere in the 1970s to
1980s, though we're only just starting to be aware of this in a broader sense.

