The official dogma of most western societies runs somewhat like this: “…If we are interested in maximizing the welfare of our citizens, the way to do that is by maximizing individual freedom…” The reason for such statement is both, that freedom is in and of itself “good”, “valuable”, “worthwhile” and “essential to being human”. If people have “freedom” then each one of us can act on our own to do the things that will maximize our welfare and no one has to decide on our behalf. Accordingly but not necessarily, the way to maximize “freedom” is to maximize choice, the more choice people have the more “freedom” they can have , in turn the more welfare they acquire. This, I think, is so deeply embedded in the water supply that I wouldn’t expect anyone to question it. This is also deeply embedded in our lives too, to the extent that it turns “unquestionable”.
If we take this into account and as an example an electronic store, where you got millions of different choices and offers to a particular product, for instance, a stereo sound system, the “variability” of it generates “choices”.
In other aspects of life that are much more significant than buying things, the same exploition of choice is true. In healthcare, for example, it is no longer the case that you go to the doctor and the doctor tells you what to do. Instead the doctor tells you “We could do A or B, where A has this benefits and this risks, and B has this benefits and this risks, Which one do you want to do?” And you say, “Doc, what should I do?” And the doctor says “A has these benefits and these risks and B has this benefits and this risks, what do YOU want to do?” So then you say, “If you were me, what would you do?” And the doctor says “But I am not you”.
The result is a shifting of the burdening and responsibility for decision making from somebody who “knows something”, namely the doctor, to somebody who “knows nothing” and is almost certainly sick and is not in the best shape to be making decisions, namely the patient.
With respect to marriage and family, there was a time that there was a false assumption that almost everyone had (according to my grandfather of course) and it was that you would get married as soon as you could, and then start having children, hence the only real choice was: With whom? Not “when”, and not “what you did after”.
Nowadays, the new generation is preoccupied asking themselves (I include myself) consuming questions such as: Should I get married now or later? Or perhaps, not marry at all? Should I have kids or not? Should I have a career first and then marriage or backwards? Should I go to this University or the other?
The question I arrive to is: Is this “good news” or “bad news”? And the answer is “Yes” jaja. We all “know” what is “good” about it, so I rather best describe what is “bad” about it. According to myself, choice has two negative effects on people. One affect paradoxically produces “paralysis” rather than “liberation”. With so many options to choose people find it very difficult to make a decision. The more choice we have, the more stress we experience in taking the decision, the more accurate we want to be, to the point that we end up putting it out for tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and then as we “know” tomorrow never comes. It is just so hard to decide, that we just keep pushing it and avoid all the stress that takes to make such an assorted decision.
The second effect is that even if we manage to overcome the “paralyses” and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from. There are “explanations” that I deduce from thinking: you could have made a different choice that could have been better, but you will never know what it could have been. This imagined alternative induces you to regret the decision you made, and this regret subtracts the satisfaction you get out of the decision you made even if it was a good decision. Often times we divulge in the “imagined past that projects a future” kind of thinking, more known as the typical “what if” question. That certainly leads us to regret, and as a result, dissatisfaction.
I would say another reason is “Escalation of expectation” Choices are supposed to improve our lives and suit our needs, so the more choices the more needs we suit, and the more we expect out of our decisions. For instance, this last time I went to buy a pair of jeans, I found myself emerged into a world of undecidedness: I had thousands of options in a 3 stories Abercrombie Store, with 2 helpers asking me “What color? What type? What size? What style? What kind of pockets” what…what…what?” And all of these just for a single pair of jeans. So, I tried several of them, I doubted, I hesitated, I came back to one and then went to another, and then I finally made a decision after so much doubting. I walked out of the store and I thought to myself I did better, but I inevitably felt worse. I felt like it was good but it was not perfect. So I asked myself a simple question: Why? So I thought about it and came up with a “self-theory sort of response”, and it goes somewhat like this “With all the available options, the expectations go up and with less available options, the expectations lower down”
Furthermore, I concluded in a paradoxical form, that adding options to peoples life’s doesn’t help but increases the expectations about what people have about how good it could be, which produces less satisfactions with results, even when results were good.
The reason that everything was better back when everything was worse is that when everything was worse it was actually possible for people to have experiences that were a pleasant surprise. Nowadays, the world we live in, we affluent industrialized citizens with perfection, the expectation, the best that we could ever hope for, is that stuff is good as you expect it to be. That would probably never please us enough, because our expectations have gone through the roof. We expect the best, so much and so perfect, that we just drag ourselves into disappointment. So, I wanted to conclude sort of a funny sounding statement, and that is “The secret to happiness is low expectations” jajaja.
Finally, one consequence of making a single decision out of one choice is that when you are dissatisfied, there’s a question, and that is: who is responsible for this? The answer is clear, the world is responsible!! “Of course it is, I did not have other options! It’s their fault.”
On the other hand, when we make a decision out of many options, who becomes responsible? Yes, ourselves!! “You could have done better”, with a lot of options there is no excuse for failures, besides, you chose your own “future”. Short in hand, we blame ourselves. One of the things that goes in hand with the paradox of choice is “depression”. “Depression” has exploited in the industrial world in the last generation and I believe a significant contributor to this exploition of “depression” and also suicide, is that people have experiences that are disappointing because their standards are so high, and then when they have to explain those experiences to themselves, they think they are at fault. The inevitable result is that we may do better objectively, but we feel worse. So there is no question that “some” choice is better than “non”, but it doesn’t follow from that, that “more” choice is better than “some” choice. Now, as a policy matter, the thing to think about is this: Is material affluence what enables all of this choice in industrial societies? There are lots of places in the world that their problem is not that they have “too much choice”, their problem, on the contrary, is that they ‘have too little choice”. What is so frustrating and infuriating about these expensive complicated choices, is not simply that they don’t help, they actually hurt, and make us worse off. So I wonder what would happen if some of what enables people in industrial societies to make all of the choices that they make, were shifted to societies in which people have fewer options. Would that become sort of a “retro-help system” in which their needs are satisfied with the excess in industrial societies and, convergently the issues of excess in industrial societies solved through that flow? I just wonder…
In conclusion, the excess of choice increases paralysis and decreases satisfaction, sounds like quite a great recipe for misery. But I believe that misery comes along strikingly not when we face decisions like “buying a pair of jeans” or such, but when we have to decide the course of our own future, if at all possible. I certainly felt the stress of making a decision when I came to the United States to pursue a career in Psychology. However, I did not experience “the paradox of choice” as much as I am experiencing it now, that I am close to graduate and have to take decisions towards my future. Do I want to go to graduate school and pursue a masters or doctorate? Do I want to start working and make money? Do I want to come back to Argentina or stay in the United States? But the most tremendously and collectively stressful paradoxically optional question ultimately becomes: WHAT DO WE WANT FROM LIFE???
Lucas Cavolo, Applied & Analytical Psychology Senior Student.
S. S: Schwartz Conference of Happiness, Bethel College, October, 2006.
