Consequences of Too Many Choices

In this interview Schwartz makes known that that with too many choices people can’t choose at all. Schwartz agrees that choices are good; that they are a part of human life, but also argues that with so many choices it can become paralyzing to people. Most people would believe that the more choice people have the better they are, and this seems perfectly reasonable. To Schwartz though this is all too problematic. Here are two (only two) consequences of having too many choices.

consequence #1:
So even if you overcome paralysis (the overwhelming amount of choice, i.e. having to decide from 200 cereals) by making a ‘good’ decision (finally choosing a cereal) you will end up
less satisfied because you’ll probably end up thinking about the other other selections that you could have went with (i.e Fruits loops and not Oatmeal).

consequence #2:
With too many choices to choose from you’ll probably end up adopting a strategy to simplify the task of choosing on the basis of criteria that may be easy to evaluate. Despite the fact that such criteria may not be the most important criteria.
Example: It’s like purchasing a brand of cereal because of its pretty packaging. The packaging of a cereal box though is a poor factor to evaluate cereals on. Though a poor factor to make a decision on, the packaging of a cereal box is a noticeable thus making it a simple and quick way of evaluating and comparing one cereal to another. On the other hand, choosing a cereal on the basis of important criteria like its nutritional value is far too time consuming (involves reading and not just looking) and requires more energy (consumers need to take the cereal box and flip it to the back in order to read it). Evaluating cereals by their packaging proves to be more efficient by taking less time, so most consumers opt for packaging as a way to evaluate cereal boxes rather than important criteria like a cereal’s nutritional value.

It's not just Schwartz who has noticed the overburden of choice. In this article researches (from a health perspective) noticed the consequences of having too many choices. Researchers here found that the more choices that shoppers (subjects in experiment) had made earlier in the day, the worse they performed on the math problems. Researches concluded that people faced with numerous choices, whether good or bad, find it difficult to stay focused enough to complete projects, handle daily tasks or even take their medicine.

It's in this article where Schwartz offers some soothing consumer-purchasing advice for us by explaining, 'study the options, then settle on something you feel good, if not perfectly, about; let informed sources like Consumer Reports choose for you; don't compare your acquisitions to others'; and don't wallow in regret.'