Contrary to what everyone believes, an abundance of options does not make us happier. When choosing any product, the fact that there is a large number to select from can paralyze you instead of granting you a greater degree of freedom, and in many cases you end up choosing none. This strange “paradox of choice”, confirmed in hundreds of everyday cases, could be the reason why many companies are starting to reduce the number of products they offer in their catalogs.
Many of the paradoxes we have seen before are nothing more than a curiosity, statements made by some philosopher or thinker who, from their formulation, intended to confuse our common sense or force us to analyze some event from another point of view. However, there are paradoxes that have practical applications in the real world. One of them is, as you might have guessed, the so-called “Paradox of Choice”. Imagine you are looking for a sandwich and you arrive at a place offering a certain number of them. If you are hungry, the logical thing would be to grab one, pay, and solve your problem. But it is demonstrated that if the number of options presented is high enough, there is a good chance you will not only take a while to choose, but you might even go back the way you came without buying any.
The Paradox of Choice
Barry Schwartz, sociologist and author of the book “The Paradox of Choice”, has shown that stores offering snacks increase their sales when the number of products offered is smaller. It seems that the abundance of options, instead of being a blessing, can paralyze us. Another example Schwartz gives is pension plans. If, when you arrive at the bank, instead of suggesting a couple of alternatives they show you 15 or 20, it is very possible you will leave without having made any decision. If you own one of these companies, the Paradox of Choice is, without a doubt, much more than a curiosity for you.
Everyone wants options. When choosing a notebook, for example, many users complain that there is not a large variety of models. That is, even though the number of manufacturers is quite important, the alternatives regarding processor models, screen size, memory size, or hard drive size are far from being as large as with their desktop “cousins”. Surely there is a reason for this (many attribute it to conditions imposed by Microsoft for granting OEM licenses), but the truth is that if we had hundreds of completely different models, we might postpone the purchase for a longer time. And the same can be applied to practically any product or service you can imagine, from cars to ADSL connection services.
Barry Schwartz has taken all this very seriously and has found some very curious things. For example, if you give your students a very long list of topics, the time needed to finish a writing assignment is much longer than if you only propose one. Why? A large part of the time is lost deciding which of the alternatives is appropriate before starting to work. As we said before, increasing the available options does not generate freedom but paralysis.
As if this were not enough, Schwartz has found that the abundance of options can even generate dissatisfaction. Imagine you are getting dressed to go to a party, and at that moment the phone rings. It is a friend inviting you to another place. You decide to cancel your first commitment and go with the new plan. Unless your friend's party turns out to be excellent, you will surely feel terrible for not having gone to the first one. Even, if you are picky enough, you might not enjoy the moment with your friend thinking about the party you did not attend.
During the process of choosing your ideal place to go out, you have unconsciously increased the expectations of the night ahead, also increasing the chances of being disappointed when contrasting them with reality. The paradox of choice makes you feel worse even if you went to the best party. Schwartz concludes that the idea behind “maximizing well-being” by force of “maximizing freedom” is false. “Having some options is better than none, but many is worse than some,” he assures.
Many companies are working on this topic. Online stores, for example, which have large catalogs composed of hundreds of thousands of products, have for a long time not shown everything they have in search results, but rather a few options that will eventually change as you refine your search. With this, they seek to avoid you going around in circles and, overwhelmed by the huge offer they have, abandoning the site without buying anything. Something similar is being done by insurance companies, computer stores, and, surely, every more or less large company willing to use all resources at its disposal to improve its effectiveness. As you can see, paradoxes are not only interesting for philosophers.
