Paradox Of Choice: This Is Why Less Is More

The Cereal Brainteaser

Oh, the cereal isle… Fifty different round loop-things, twenty chocolate, twenty nut, twenty chocolate and hazelnut. 20 minutes go by with your eyes twinkling in the overrefined sweetness.

Ultimately, you grab a box. A red box with a big “XXL - Family Pack”—hope nobody knows you’re on a diet! On it is a cartoony calculator—you thought it novel—and the name, “The Choice Paradox”. Psychological…

Cereal hunt over. Drop your spoons, bowls, and milk jugs!

The Choice Paradox

Needless to say, the cereal isle isn’t the sole place where The Choice Paradox stops you. I’m confident you’ve heard of it—if not, strap yourself in.

The renowned phenomenon was ushered into psychology by Barry Schwartz. He’s alive, gave a TED talk in 2017, has a PhD, and is a professor—dude’s legit.

More Is Bad

Our little professor wrote a book in 2004 about The Choice Paradox. More freedom, more autonomy, more choices and solutions, more problems—the thesis of his book.

Barry rambled about the modern consumer’s hard life due to the explosion of choice—there weren’t hundreds of cereal brands years ago. Lo and behold, 20 years later, we have more cereal brands, fast food joints, tech stores, career intersections, and books to pick over.

Psychological Grounds

The customary question, “Are less options better?” Long story short, yes. As for why a rainbow of cereal boxes, cookie sachets, jean types, social media platforms, and travel destinations sucks—what I’m here to tell.

Why should you know? The more solutions, the less accurate you get. The array of options metamorphosizes into an array of dissatisfaction in that head of yours. Second-guessing grows into guilt, and so on. Particularly when the choice is high-stakes—we’ll get there.

Puppet Masters

Inside each colorful isle of cookies, chips, drinks, sauces, and dairy stand four psychology majors. You have four limbs. Strings attach them to your arms and legs, and The Choice Paradox controls you.

The first fellow stops you. “Hold up!” he says, holding a big, red, hexagonal stop sign. “Let’s think,” your decision paralysis friend argues, “there are so, so many opportunities…”

Can’t Move?

So you listen. Minutes pass. No thinking’s done. Your forehead is growing wrinkly. A crying kid got mild depression after mommy didn’t let him get the colorful cookies.

The event stirred you up. Decision paralysis, the first demon, evaporates. You begin picking out boxes. Double or quadruple chocolate? Soft-baked or regular? The “healthier” option? What about no cookies?!—no, no way.

Anticipated Regret

Demon two, hello. The anticipated regret steps down from the future to “help”. “But,” says the devil, “what if these are gooey?” Your hand reaches—as if possessed—and you begin studying the soft-baked.

“Wait wait,” speaks the creature, with an evil smirk, “weren’t these to dip in milk? What if the gooey ones melt too fast?!” Mhm, the fear of regretting it imprisons you for a short while.

Opportunity Cost

The third fellow comes in. Opportunity cost they call him. You go from merely admiring, to anticipating regret, to weighing alternatives. Good job!

By now, 5-10 minutes have evaporated. It’s down to three brands. The most popular one, the one you always buy, and the one your friend recommended.

Pros And Cons

Commence the weighing process. The soft-baked, gooey, classic chocolate chip? The double chocolate with a slight tang, flawless for dipping? The white and black, “less” sugar, snazzy brand? Give up popularity, your favorite, or your friend’s?

Self-Blame

12 minutes. The cookie hell ends. You grabbed your go-to. The fourth demon doesn’t paralyze you. He speaks to you.

The fourth makes you dwell on what you missed out on. Perhaps the healthier option wasn’t that bad, with the neat packaging and everything? Maybe the best-seller is a best-seller for a reason?

Brain Overload

Dwelling could be the end. Could. If you convince yourself the choice was unsatisfactory you can tumble down into self-blame. Bad cookie chooser! Bad!

At any rate, that’s the paradox of choice. The prefrontal cortex—the thinking, smart, decision-maker of the brain—becomes overloaded. You become indecisive, paralyzed.

Motivation Miasma

The brainiac is imploding with dopamine. Those cookies are better for dipping! Those taste better on their own! Shut up, those are low sugar!

Your dopaminergic system becomes confused. The second and third demons—the anticipated regret and opportunity cost, happen here. Part of you wants one thing, the other wants another. Cookies mutate into complex math.

Cookie Stress

Math springs up the stress response. Can you believe it?—your brain is spooling up due to f**king cookies! Heart rate increases, your wrinkly forehead’s a little shiny with sweat now.

Each additional choice makes for more brain load, more complexity, more variables, more outcomes, more uncertainty, more expectations, and more pressure. Yuck! Cookie complications!

Dumb Paradox…

Added up, your decision inevitably becomes less accurate, since you cannot thoroughly calculate the pros and cons. Afterwards, a wave of dissatisfaction plows through you, due to the array of “missed opportunities” and expectations.

Second-guessing, overthinking, habits, and the path of least resistance grab the controls. You snatch the usual and throw it in your cart. You buy an identical pair of jeans. You watch the first movie in the feed—after scrolling the entire catalogue.

Troublesome Things

Time? Gone. Choice? Unchanged, or regretted. Cookies are the least of our problems. Restaurant menus, online shopping, music, movies and shows, paths of education, social platforms, travel planning, insurance plans, investment decisions, too many matches on dating apps—maybe you don’t get this one…

The Choice Paradox is more problematic in the professional sector more than anywhere else, though. The amount of job opportunities, career paths, and specializations is ever-increasing, and these are no different than brands in a grocery isle.

Cognitive Overload

Folks, young and old, continually evaluate different offers and paths to take. Every time they seize a pack of cookies, their decision quality goes down. Brains overheating!

Impostor syndrome kicks in. Nitrous oxide, but, like, backwards. Individuals feel out of place and inadequate, due to not making the “best” choice—despite there being no “best” choice…

Career Isle

Analysis paralysis bangs upon the stage with his nerdy look. Think some more, analyze here, analyze there… No, it shouldn’t take you months to choose a logo! Overthinking makes us put off, or put away decisions altogether.

Don’t you forget the pressure and expectations! Today’s world makes everyone’s success feasible. So, making the “wrong” choice means you’re a goddamn orangutan! Stress, anxiety, societal pressure, and deeming yourself a failure disintegrate your satisfaction.

Easily Hard

Yeah. The career side is no cookie isle. Paradoxically, starting a business, path of study, work, or life, has never been easier nor harder.

OK. Cool. Too many alternatives screws me over. What do I do about it? Aha, as if I’d leave you powerless. In truth, it centers around voluntary limits and expectations.

Set Limits

Humans are, at the core, evaluation machines. The more we streamline those calculations, pre-plan, automate, cater our expectations, and use heuristics, the easier we make it for our brains.

Limit your options or time. Say, five. You get to evaluate five cookie brands, five cereal brands, five books, five travel destinations, five insurance providers, five… Alternatively, just set a thirty-second timer.

Simplify! Simplify!

Automate routines. What to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner could be set or rotated through a menu. Obama always wore grey suits for this purpose.

Streamline complexity. You used the five options rule, and it’s down to three. Use a rule of thumb. Buy the middle-priced or cheapest option; buy the most popular one or the waiter’s recommendation.

Plans And Satisficing

Pre-plan. Devise a shopping list based on our weekly menu. Prior to browsing a streaming catalogue, make a watchlist. Work with a career or education coach, or insurance broker, to leverage expert advice.

Lastly, alter your expectations. Focus on good enough, not “best”. Satisficing over maximizing. “Perfect” is non-existent. There are always trade-offs. If it meets your criteria, and is good enough, go with it.

The Bottom Line

In the end, less is more. Cookies or careers, our brains are limited. Never was there a time when we had so many options, with the count rising day by day. Choose which decisions not to make, wisely.