transformed people in the farthest reaches of the planet into competitive players seeking… fulfilment through material accumulation and its symbols. The Western creations of the nation-state and the relatively open markets that today dominate the global political and economic order… have largely supplanted age-old forms of governance, social formations and economic activity that involved whole communities of people that once intimately knew one another. Scot Atran, director of research in anthropology at the CNRS, École Normale Supérieure, and a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, recently wrote an (exceedingly long) article about the similarities between the Alt-right and global jihad. What are the ramifications of too much choice then? The Dizziness of Freedom By Daniela Polanco (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons But it becomes even more fascinating when we take it out of the supermarkets and consider it at the level of society. Hence the name ‘Tyranny of Choice’.Īnd that’s interesting in its own right – particularly if you own a supermarket or work in marketing. Even if that oppression only happens in our own minds. In other words, too much choice is as oppressive as too little. When people were offered 24 flavors instead of 6 they bought ten times less. In one experiment, where shoppers were offered a larger selection of jam, they ended up buying less. And as I don’t want to feel bad, I’m better off not buying any at all. What if I pick one – say whitening – and lateron realize that wasn’t the toothpaste I wanted after all? Then I’ll feel bad. How do you decide how different dimensions compare? For example, how do flavor, quality, cleaning power, if it was made ethically, price, and size compare when buying toothpaste?Įven more problematic is the concept of anticipated regret. As you can probably guess, the more products there are, the harder their choice becomes.
Then, after they’ve found several, they’ll compare them. So, even when they find one product that is good enough they keep going. So, if a satisficer is buying toothpaste they’ll grab the first box that satisfies their conditions – say one that says ‘extra fresh’ on the label.įor maximizers that’s not enough, though. Some of us are ‘satisficers’ – or willing to go with the first option that satisfies our criteria. The reason that some experience a fall in well-being is down to something Schwartz calls ‘maximizing’.
For many, more choice creates less well-being. The idea, as he explains in an article, is that while we believe as a society that more choice is better, research shows that’s not necessarily true. Instead, it was coined by the psychologist Barry Schwartz. The term ‘Tyranny of Choice’ is not mine (I wish). What if too much choice is bad for us? Is it possible many modern ills can be laid at the feet of our unbridled options and their consequences? Could it be that this uncertainty we’re feeling is down to there being too many decisions? Perhaps, instead of liberating us, all these decisions we have to make oppress us instead.
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