Why wide choice is a problem

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

An excerpt from a behavioral economics professor's book on why multiple choices distract us from our primary goal.

In 210 BC, the Chinese general Xiang Yu led his troops across the Yangtze River, intending to attack the army of the Qin Dynasty. The soldiers spent the night on the banks of the river, and waking up in the morning, they were horrified to find that their ships had burned down. The soldiers rushed as fast as they could in search of the attackers, but soon learned that Xiang Yu himself had set fire to their ships and, in addition, he ordered to destroy all the cooking pots.

Xiang Yu explained to his warriors that with the loss of the cauldrons and ships, they had no choice left - they must either win or die. Of course, this did not make Xiang Yu one of the most beloved military leaders in the Chinese army, but his actions helped the soldiers to concentrate as much as possible: grabbing spears and bows, they fiercely attacked the enemy and won nine battles in a row, almost completely defeating the main military units of the Qin dynasty.

Xiang Yu's story is remarkable in that it is completely contrary to the norms of human behavior.

As a rule, we do not like to close the door to the alternatives we have.

In other words, if we climbed into Xiang Yu's armor, we would send part of our army to look after the ships in case they are needed for the retreat. We would also ask part of the army to organize food in case the army has to stay in place for several weeks. And the third we would instruct to make rice paper - in case we need parchment to sign on it the surrender agreement of the mighty Qin dynasty (which was the most incredible scenario of all of the above).

In today's world, we are feverishly trying to preserve all the available opportunities. We buy modifiable computer systems with the expectation that we will need all of these high-tech gadgets someday. Together with the new TV, we buy insurance in case its big screen suddenly goes blank. We force our children to do a lot of things - hoping that they will spark a spark of interest in gymnastics, piano, French, gardening or taekwondo. We buy a luxury SUV - not because we plan to drive off-road, but because we want our car to have a high ground clearance (what if someday we decide to drive through the fields).

We are not always aware of this, but in any case, we are compromising something in order to have more room for maneuver.

As a result, we have a computer with more functions than we need, or a stereo system with an extremely expensive warranty. For our children, we sacrifice both ours and their own time, and we also give up the possibility that children can become truly successful in one activity. Instead, we try to give them some experience, but in a wide range. While doing one thing or another, each of which seems important to us, we forget to devote enough time to what is really important. This is a stupid game that we can play very well.

I noticed a similar problem in one of my students, a talented guy named Joe. After completing his junior years, Joe passed all the required exams and now had to choose a specialization. But which one? He had a passion for architecture and spent all his weekends exploring Boston's eclectic buildings. He believed that someday he would be able to design an equally remarkable building. At the same time, he loved computer science, not least because of the freedom and flexibility inherent in this field of study. He imagined that someday he would be able to take a leading position in a great company like Google. Parents wanted Joe to do computer work, because MIT doesn't study to become an architect? Nevertheless, he was very fond of architecture.

Joe was wringing his hands in despair when he told me about his dilemma. He saw no way to combine computer science and architecture studies. To become a computer scientist, he needed to study algorithms, artificial intelligence, computer systems, circuits and electronics, signals, computational structures, as well as devote time to laboratory programming. And to become an architect, he had to choose completely different courses: the principles of architects, the basics of fine arts, introduction to construction technology, computer design, history and theory of architecture, and also had to attend architectural workshops.

How could he close the door to one of the career lines? Joe would hardly have been able to study architecture in its entirety if he started computer science, and if he chose architecture, he would not have had time for computer science. At the same time, having started attending courses in both specialties, he most likely would not have been able to obtain a degree in either of them after four years of study, and he would have needed another year (during which his tuition would be fully paid by his parents) … (He eventually graduated from college with a degree in computer science, but he found the perfect combination - he started designing nuclear submarines for the Navy.)

Dana, another student of mine, had a similar problem - but in her case, the choice was between two boyfriends. She could devote all her energy and passion to the person she recently met and hoped to build a lasting relationship with. Or she could continue to spend time and effort on her previous friend, with whom the relationship was gradually fading. It was quite clear that she liked the new friend more than the old one, but she could not end her previous relationship in one fell swoop. Meanwhile, her new friend was getting impatient. "Dana, do you really want to take the risk and lose the person you love," I asked her, "for the illusory possibility that someday you will love your former friend more than you do now?" She shook her head, mumbled “no,” and burst into tears.

What is the difficulty in choosing between different options?

Why are we forced to keep as many doors open as possible, even at a high price? Why can't we devote ourselves to one thing?

In an attempt to answer these questions, Jeewung Shin (a professor at Yale University) and I came up with a series of experiments that we thought could help solve the dilemma facing Joe and Dana. In our case, the experiment was based on a computer game that we hoped would help remove some of the complexities of life and give us a direct answer to the question of why people tend to keep too many doors open for too long. We called it "door play" and decided to send our players to a dark, gloomy place - a cave that even the brave warriors of Xiang Yu's army would be reluctant to enter.

* * *

MIT's East Campus dorm is a strange place. Hackers, lovers of all sorts of mechanisms, hermits and eccentrics live here (and believe me, in order to be considered an eccentric at MIT, you still need to work very hard). Loud music, wild parties or even walking naked are allowed in some areas. Others are like a magnet for engineering students and are therefore filled with mock-ups of anything from bridges to roller coasters (if you happen to visit this room, press the Urgent Pizza button on the wall and in a matter of minutes you will have a freshly made pizza in front of you).

One evening, Kim, one of my research assistants, was wandering the hallways of the dorm with a laptop clutched under her arm. Looking into each room, she asked the students if they would like to make some money by taking part in a small experiment. If the answer was yes, Kim went into the room and found (sometimes with difficulty) an empty spot to put her laptop on.

When the program was loading, three doors appeared on the computer screen: red, blue and green. Kim explained to the participants that they can enter any of the three rooms (red, blue, or green) by clicking on the image of the corresponding door.

After the students were in the room, each subsequent press of the button brought them a certain amount of money.

If in a certain room it was offered to receive from 1 to 10 cents, then a certain amount in this range was awarded to them with each click of the mouse. As they progressed, the screen displayed the amount of income they earned.

The most money in this game could be earned by finding the room with the highest winnings and clicking on it as many times as possible. But the game was not so trivial. Each time you moved from one room to another, you used one press (you could press the button 100 times in total). On the one hand, a good strategy would be to move from one room to another in an attempt to find the room with the maximum payoff. On the other hand, rushing from one door to another (and from one room to another) meant that you wasted your clicks and thereby lost the opportunity to make more money.

The first participant in the experiment was a violinist named Albert (who lived in the premises of the "worshipers of the Dark Lord Crotus cult"). He loved to compete, so he was determined to make the most in this game. On the first move, he chose the red door and ended up in a cube-shaped room.

Once inside, he pressed the mouse button. The screen flashed the amount of 3.5 cents. He clicked again and got 4.1 cents. By pressing the third time, he received another 1 cent. He made several more attempts, after which his interest was aroused by the green door. He clicked the mouse impatiently and entered.

In the new room, he received 3.7 cents for the first click, 5.8 cents for the second, and 6.5 for the third. The amount of his income at the bottom of the screen was growing. It seemed that the green room was better than the red one, but what awaited him in the blue room? He clicked again to enter the last door and understand what was behind it. Three button presses earned him about 4 cents. The game was not worth the candle. He hurried back to the green door and used all the remaining attempts here, which increased his winnings. In the end, Albert inquired about his result. Kim smiled and told him that so far his result is one of the best.

Albert confirmed what we suspected was inherent in human behavior: given a simple attitude and a clear goal (in this case, making money), we skillfully find the source of our pleasure. If this experiment was carried out with dating, then Albert would try to meet with one girl, then with another, and even start an affair with a third. Having tried all the options, he would have returned to the best, with which he stayed until the end of the game.

But let's be honest, Albert was in easy conditions. While he "dated" others, his former girlfriends patiently waited for him to return to their arms. What if the girls he neglected turned away from him? Let’s assume that the opportunities he had before began to disappear. Would Albert have let them go with a light heart or tried to hold on to the last? Would he be willing to sacrifice part of his guaranteed winnings for the right to keep the options?

In 1941, the philosopher Erich Fromm wrote the book Escape from Freedom. He believed that in a modern democracy, people suffer not from a lack of opportunities, but from their dizzying abundance. This is exactly how things are in our modern society. We are constantly reminded that we can do whatever we want and be who we want to be. The only problem is how to make this dream come true. We must develop ourselves in all directions; must taste every aspect of our life. We want to make sure that out of 1,000 things that every person needs to see before death catches up with him, we did not stop at number 999. But then the question arises: are we scattering too much? It seems to me that the temptation described by Fromm is somewhat similar to what we observed in the behavior of our participants rushing from one door to another.

Running from one door to another is a rather odd thing to do. But even stranger is our tendency to chase doors that are of little value to us: the possibilities hidden behind them are insignificant or uninteresting to us.

For example, my student Dana has already come to the conclusion that it makes no sense for her to continue a relationship with one of her friends. So why did she jeopardize the relationship with another person and continue to keep in touch with a less attractive partner? And how many times have we ourselves bought something at the sale, not because we really needed it, but only because the sale was over and, perhaps, we could never have bought these things at such low prices?

* * *

The other side of this tragedy manifests itself when we cannot understand that some truly important things are “closing doors” and therefore require our immediate attention. For example, we may spend more and more time at work without realizing that our children's childhood is passing us by.

Sometimes the doors close slowly and we do not notice how they decrease in size.

For example, one of my friends told me that the best year of his marriage was the year he lived in New York himself, and his wife was in Boston and they could only meet on weekends. Before that, while both of them lived in Boston, they rarely spent weekends together - more often than not, each of them was immersed in their work. But when the conditions changed and they realized that the only time they could see each other was the weekend, the opportunities shrank and became limited in time (their communication had to end no later than the moment the last train departed). Since it was clear to them that the clock was ticking, they decided to devote the weekend to each other and not to work.

I am not trying to convince you that you should give up work and stay at home in order to spend the maximum amount of time with your children. I am not encouraging couples to disperse to different cities in order to enjoy a joint weekend (although this situation has its advantages). But how much better it would be if there was a built-in alarm system inside each of us, warning when the doors associated with the things most important to us are closed.

Dan Ariely is a professor at Duke University, economist and psychologist. For many years he has been studying how people behave in certain conditions. Through her experiments and the experiences of other scientists, in the book "Predictable Irrationality" Arieli explains why we often act illogically, what it is fraught with and how to force the brain to make intelligent decisions.