Why choice makes us unhappy

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

We are used to thinking that a large selection of goods, companies and services provides us with freedom and allows us to get the best. In fact, in most cases, the choice is confusing and unhappy. Why this happens - we will tell in this article.

On one occasion in Springfield, the Simpsons visited Monstromart, a new supermarket with the slogan "Where shopping is hard." The choice of products was simply huge, shelves with goods reached the ceiling, there were more than a thousand species of nutmeg alone. In the end, the family returned to their usual Apu's Kwik-E-Mart supermarket.

The Simpsons preferred a supermarket with a limited selection of goods. Logically, this is not the most rational thing to do, but it does give the customer the right feeling.

They preferred to get the satisfaction of being able to choose a good product from several presented, rather than get confused by the huge number of Monstromart products. And despite the fact that this is an animated series, this approach to the choice of goods is quite real and is confirmed by examples from life.

Fewer products - more profit

More recently, Dave Lewis, CEO of Tesco, the UK's largest grocery and industrial retailer, has made shopping much easier. He decided to remove 30,000 of the 90,000 products from supermarket shelves. This was partly a response to the growing share of German retail chains Aldi and Lidl, which offer only about 2-3 thousand product lines.

For example, Tesco has 28 tomato ketchups to choose from, while discounters Aldi only offer one ketchup per pack of the same size. Tesco offers 224 types of air fresheners, Aldi - only 12, which is still 11 more than needed.

Now Lewis is trying to make shopping at Tesco less time consuming for shoppers. He ran an experiment in 50 stores, making it easier and faster to shop for food ingredients. For example, Indian sauces were placed next to basmati rice, and pasta next to canned tomatoes.

Lewis took a revolutionary approach: he simultaneously reduced the number of products and arranged them in the correct order so that buyers spend much less time choosing and buying. And this had a positive effect on sales.

The very idea that a lot of choice is bad defies everything that we have believed for decades.

The large selection is confusing

There is a standard opinion that a large selection provides us with freedom and new opportunities, but this opinion will not help you when you are standing in front of a huge rack of bottles of water, thirsty, but cannot choose in any way.

American psychologist and professor of social theory, Barry Schwartz, in his book The Paradox of Choice, argues that in practice, a lot of choice is just confusing.

A great example of this is shown in the jam experiment. The grocery store set up two display windows, where customers were offered to try jam and get a jar of jam at a $ 1 discount. In one showcase there were six types of jam, in the other - 24 types. Of the people who tasted jam in a display with six types, 30% bought a jar, and in a display with 24 views, only 3% of buyers decided to buy.

The choice removes responsibility from the supplier

Consider another example - retirement savings. Schwartz found out that a friend's firm offered 156 different retirement plans. The professor noticed that such a large choice, as it were, shifts the responsibility for the quality of the chosen plan from the employer to the employee.

When the employer provides few pension plans, he is responsible for their reliability and the quality of the tariffs. But if he offers a huge number of plans, then, as it were, shifts the responsibility for choosing a quality plan to the employees: "We gave you a huge choice, and if you chose an unprofitable plan, then this is your mistake, and we have nothing to do with it."

And this becomes a huge problem. How many of us feel competent enough to choose the best plan for ourselves from 156 options? People are sure that making the right decision about retirement savings is very important. "But instead of making a choice," says Schwartz, "many put it off indefinitely."

One of his colleagues, who has access to the giant mutual fund company, found that every 10 new funds offered by employers reduced workers' contributions by 2%, even if they lost a great chance of getting $ 5,000 a year from the employer.

Feelings of guilt and high expectations

“Even if we finally make a choice,” says Schwartz, “we feel less satisfaction with the outcome than if we chose from fewer options. If you have many alternatives, it is easy to imagine that they are still better than what you have chosen. You worry about making the wrong choice, and it's really frustrating."

Thus, too many choices can make us unhappy with regrets, guilt, and lost profits. Worse, too much choice creates a new problem - high expectations.

Let's take jeans as an example. While the stores sell only one type of jeans that does not suit you, you take them, wear them out, wash them, hem them, and they more or less suit you. And when in stores there is a huge variety of jeans: tight, wide, zipped and buttoned, high and low waist - you expect that there should be a model that suits you perfectly.

And when you buy the most suitable model from those that were in the store, and understand that it is far from perfect and needs improvement, you get upset.

Schwartz suggests that, to some extent, a large selection robs you of your sense of satisfaction. "The secret to happiness is low expectations," the professor says.

Then it is not surprising that we are unhappy. In the 10 years since Schwartz wrote the book, the idea of huge choice has permeated all walks of life: schools, sex, parenting products, television. As a result, expectations have also increased greatly.

One area that has been influenced by this trend is dating. Relationships have come to be seen as any other product: on the Internet we can find and select a promising sexual partner for ourselves.

Dating sites are one of the most common ways to find a romantic partner, and the huge selection on these sites becomes a real problem. A similar situation was shown by comedian Aziz Ansari in his book Modern Novel. In it, a woman made an appointment through a dating app, and while she was driving to a meeting, she looked to see if anyone better appeared in the application.

In such conditions, a complete rejection of dating and relationships is gaining popularity. As sociology professor Eric Klinenberg wrote, the extraordinary rise in the number of single people is because people have more choice and fewer reasons to choose. In Japan, for example, there are men who have ceased to be interested in real sex and romantic relationships simply because there is too much pornography on the Internet for every taste.

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo argues that as online pornography provides many choices for satisfying one's desires through masturbation, actual romantic relationships are becoming less and less attractive.

You pay more for the same

There is another problem: the increase in choice masks the fact that you are paying more for the things you already have. This often happens in the television industry.

For example, the BT Sport group of sports channels received exclusive rights to broadcast football matches of the Champions League and Europa League. On the one hand, it seems that viewers have more choice and more enjoyment to watch. But, if you are a subscriber of another channel, for example Sky Sports, this means the opposite. To watch all the broadcasts that you watched in the past year, you will have to pay more.

This often happens on television. To watch all good programs, you need to subscribe to many channels or buy a large package. And 10 years ago, when there was no such diversity, you could watch all good programs on one or two channels.

What is presented to us as a large selection actually costs more. For the average consumer, such a choice is an opportunity to spend the same money and get less, or spend more and get the same.

Fear and anxiety for wrong choices

“Consider electricity,” says Professor Renata Salecl, author of The Tyranny of Choice. - The privatization of electricity did not bring the desired results: lower prices and better quality of service. Instead, people are constantly worried and guilty about continuing to overpay for electricity when there is probably a better supplier somewhere nearby.”

We believe that the choices we make after careful planning should bring the expected results - happiness, safety, pleasure. That, having made the right choice, we will be able to avoid unpleasant feelings when we have to come to terms with loss or risk. But in the end, the opposite is true: when people are confused by a huge choice and when they worry about it, most often there is denial, ignorance and deliberate blindness.

Still, Schwartz believes that a little choice can be beneficial. For example, charter schools appeared in the United States in the 1990s. Since education in public schools in the United States is generally terrible, charter schools have begun to improve the quality of education through constant competition.

But, of course, it doesn't get any easier for the parents. As with choosing a pension, choosing a school leaves a sea of regret, shame and fear that your choice is not the best. It’s no easier to think that your choices directly affect your child’s future.

Competition or monopoly

Against the backdrop of all this, in 2015, there are trends in the world to reduce stress by reducing choice, and this applies not only to products in supermarkets. In Britain, for example, politicians are proposing to re-nationalize railways and utilities. Perhaps this will help reduce the anxiety and anguish of citizens' choice.

Perhaps, in reality, we do not need an increase, but, on the contrary, a decrease in choice? Fewer competing companies, more monopolies. And before you think back to the Soviet Union with scarcity and the same goods, read the quote from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who believes that monopoly is a great thing, and competition is not always good for businesses and customers alike.

In the real world, any business is as successful as it can offer what others cannot. Therefore, monopoly is the normal state of any successful business. In essence, competition is for losers.

Peter Thiel