Once more, a TED talk has inspired me to write about it, and this particular one is a very excellent examination of a topic I find absolutely fascinating : how past a certain point, having more options makes people less happy, not more.

First off, let me get this said : I love this Barry Schwartz guy. He is likable, he is funny, he is obviously a good thinker, and he has a lot of interesting things to say on the subject.

Also, I have to give mad love to anyone who does such a good job of illustrating his points with cartoons from the New Yorker. That is intellectual brain candy for a fellow like me.

Now, on the substance of his talk : I have a deep personal interest in this Paradox of Choice of which he speaks. Being someone whose overabundance of creativity and/or lack of character often leaves him experiencing the very option paralysis of which Barry Schwartz speaks, I find comfort in the fact that it might be a product of more than my own neuroses. It might, in fact, be product of the current state of society, where we have removed all the old restrictions that used to confine people, but in the process, took away all the things people used to guide and define themselves.

I loved that cartoon with the two goldfish, the bigger one saying to the smaller “You can be anything you want to be!”. I have seen no better illustration of the problems created by the well-meant but ultimately destructive message of unlimited individual potential upon which I was raised. Myself, my generation, and every generation afterward, in fact, as far as I can tell.

But the nub of his talk was this fact that more choices make people less happy in our modern world. The more options you have, the less likely you are to be confident that you made the right choice. The more options you have, the higher your expectations are as to the quality of the result. The more options you have, the greater your fear of being judged for your choices.

That is a point I would like to emphasize, because Schwartz did not cover it. One of the most profound effects of a middle class consumer society is that, in a condition of enormous material plenty, and of communities of people who all have roughly the same income levels (compared to the difference between a lord and his serfs, for example), we compare and compete amongst our income peers almost exclusively on the basis of which products we buy. We judge and are judged by the quality of our choices. We endlessly compare ourselves to others and if they seem more affluent and successful, we ask ourselves “What do they know that I don’t know?”. We pore over magazines looking for that special info that will temporarily assuage our pervasive fears of “falling behind”. We dread like death the idea that we will be found guilty of the worst possible middle class consumer crime : “settling for less”.

That is, and always has been, what the whole “keeping up with the Joneses” thing is about. Odds are, the Joneses are no richer than you are. But if they seem richer and more successful, it would just about kill you, wouldn;t it? To think that people think those smug bastards are better off than you? That they might even think you made stupid consumer choices? That you settled for less?

I mean, what will the neighbors think?

And this modern era of on-demand manufacturing and brands trying to push the other brands off the shelves by offering more varieties of their product and the Internet making it possible to order from anywhere in the world and from a billion different possible suppliers, this option neurosis only gets worse. When you could have ordered any product in the world, what are the odds you will be sure you got the right one? And how high are your expectations for the final result?

I also want to cover that aspect a bit more. I think that not only does a large number of options make you more demanding of the result by the direct mechanism of comparison, but it also works via the deep logic of the labour theory of value. Having the sort through a massive list of options before being able to get what you want forces you to work hard to get the thing, and the harder you work for something, the greater the reward you expect from it.

And when we are talking about is something as mundane and everyday as a tube of toothpaste, the odds are heavily against it being rewarding enough to justify the extra effort.

Another choice that disappears in an option rich society, besides the obvious choice of having fewer choices, is that you lose the choice of not having an opinion on something. In fact, the greater the scope and variety of options, the greater the number of preferences you are now required to develop. You have no choice in the matter. You are going to have to figure out if tartar control is more important to you than tooth whitening. Even if deep down, you really do not give a crap.

One more thing to add before I move on to solutions : what truly complicated this whole issue is the recent science that objectively proves that people are actually extremely bad at predicted what will make them happy. Study after study has asked people to rate their current happiness, then predict which of a set of options will make them happier, then choose, then rate their happiness again.

And time and again, people given full choice of options nevertheless report that they got no happier, or even that they got worse.

People have wondered why. How is it that we are so bad at figuring out what will make us happy? I submit that the Paradox of Choice might provide an explanation. The people are so unsure of whether they made the right choice that it spoils their enjoyment of whatever choice they make. Result? No net gain.

Now on to solutions. At first glance, the problem of too many options seems unsolvable. We individualistic citizens of option rich consumer societies would certainly balk, and balk hard,
at the very notion of someone limited our options for us for our own good.

But I think there are possibilities. For one, from a private sector service point of view, a great advantage could be gained by making all your options optional. Offer people a standard package with only a mild suggestion that other options are available, then if the customer asks for something different, you can tell them “yes, we can do that.”. That way, the customer is not inundated with options and yet still has the freedom to customize their experience to their liking.

But from a broader point of view, the only solution I see is the rise of a group of consumer gurus who work with consumers one on one to help their make their choices. Call them shopping coaches, or happiness experts, or the like. People with the knowledge and expertise to help people voluntarily cut down their options and hone in on the choices and products that suit them best. I think a lot of people would be willing to pay someone to do this.

I can even picture the rise of a chain of supermarkets which, in a sense, specialize in a lack of choice. There would exactly one brand of everything, the store brand. The consumer would obviously have to trust that the store brand represented quality, but with the right kind of promotion, you could make it work. And imagine how much less retail space you would have to pay for if you did not have to stock so many brands of everything!

We can already see choice-limiting trends in the proliferating of consumer ratings on online shopping experiences. With online shopping, you cannot directly interact with the product, and this creates a very abstract and information poor consumer choice experience. But if you can get the aggregate opinion of all the other people who have bought the same sort of product from that retailer, you can then use that information to help make your choice.

Information is only an imperfect solution, however, because of course, inundating the customer with information is as bad or worse than inundating them with choice.

Regardless, I am fairly confident that the increasingly efficient mechanisms of the marketplace will develop solutions to the problems of excessive options in our lives, and in the future we will all be able to find the number of options with which we are comfortable.

After all, it is not as if we have a choice.