The Paradox of Choice summary

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” asked the existentialist philosopher Albert Camus, making the point that in every area and every moment of our lives a choice is waiting to be made.

Not only that, but there are always alternatives to our choices. Luckily, however, most of our actions are so automatic that we don’t really contemplate the alternatives. Therefore, there is little psychological reality to this freedom of choice: as choices go, putting underwear on and brushing our teeth don’t really count.

Knowing what we want essentially means being able to anticipate how one choice or another will make us feel. Though this sounds simple, it’s actually a very difficult task.

Even when choosing from just a handful of alternatives, people’s decision making is susceptible to error. This is due to the fact that our choices are partially governed by our memories, which are often biased.

Say you’re choosing a vacation: What about touring in northern California? Or would you rather spend a week at a beach house on Cape Cod?

Whichever you choose, the decision involves passing up the opportunities the other option would’ve provided.

When was the last time you bought something really nice? Let’s imagine it was a magnificent electronic device that you spent a long time deciding on. If you are like virtually every other living being, your satisfaction with the device fell a bit flat after a while.

Human beings, like all other animals, respond less and less to any given event as the event persists – we simply get used to things.

It seems that as American society grows wealthier, and Americans become freer to pursue and do whatever they want, they get less and less happy.

Consider the fact that 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.

Imagine that you’re shopping for a sweater. If you aspire to make the absolutely best purchase that can be made, and therefore feel the urge to check out the alternatives to be sure that you’ve found just the right sweater, you might be a maximizer.

As a decision strategy, maximizing 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.

We all know people who can choose quickly and decisively. These people are satisficers and they’re characterized by having a certain standard they adhere to when choosing, instead of having “the best” as their goal.

Satisficing is a fairly simple decision strategy – it means searching until you find the option that meets your standards, and stopping at that point.

The unlimited freedom of choice in ever more aspects of life might make us lonely and cause us more distress than we realize.

As a society, we might earn and spend more money than ever before, but we also spend less time with the people around us. Indeed, the political scientist and author Robert Lane explains that 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.

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.