The Paradox of Choice - How We Choose (Entry II)

As mentioned previously, consumers today are provided with more and more varieties of goods and services. As a result, making a satisfying decision can be tricky and time consuming, to say the least. With advertisements everywhere, consumers are oftentimes exposed to misleading statistics that could persuade them to make poor choices.

Barry Schwartz mentions a major factor that can dissuade decision makers from making a satisfying choice—the availability heuristic. Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky reported this discovery and stated that people have a tendency to give undue weight to some types of information. The availability heuristic says that people logically assume that the more available something is to their memory, the more frequently we have encountered it in the past. However, this is only partly true because salience, or a memory’s vividness, also matters greatly (Schwartz 58).

Schwartz gives the following example: a consumer is seeking to purchase a safe and reliable car. He dutifully checks Consumer Reports, a trustworthy source, and discovers that Volvos are ranked highest for safety and reliability. Later, however, a friend gives an emotional, vivid account of how the Volvo she bought six months ago gave her nothing but trouble. Since most people give undue but substantial weight to these types of salient, anecdotal “evidence,” the positive ranking from the Consumer Reports may be cancelled out. Thus, that consumer may be dissuaded from purchasing a Volvo.

Going back to the Nisbett article on holistic versus analytic perception, I have realized that Westerners could be dramatically different decision makers than Asians. Since Westerners generally tend to focus on a salient aspect, independent of its context, they may be more liable to give more undue weight to vivid, personal accounts. On the other hand, because Asians tend to have a more holistic perception, they may weigh such salient accounts much less in their decision making. By relying more on facts and less on arbitrary, individual cases, decision makers would be more likely to gain greater utility from their choices.

"The Paradox of Choice" - Our Choices (Entry I)

Barry Schwartz in his Ted Talks presentation highlighted the “official dogma of all Western industrial societies,” which is to maximize the welfare of citizens by maximizing individual freedom. Accordingly, he stated that the widely embraced way “to maximize freedom is to maximize choice—the more choices people have, the more freedom they have; [and] the more freedom they have, the more welfare they have.” Having first listened to him in ToK class a couple months ago, I have increasingly begun to realize the vast number of choices and decisions we face in our everyday lives.

Schwartz pointed out in the Paradox of Choice that a short walk down his supermarket’s snack section would yield 85 varieties of crackers and 285 varieties of cookies, excluding 20 different types of Goldfish. However, for the average middle-class consumer who seeks to economically maximize the utility of his decision, locating the "perfect" package of cookies could a time-consuming task. Further, the emotional residue of the next best alternative would linger in the consumer’s mind, especially if the type of cookie he purchased was only mediocre. Even if the cookie was entirely satisfactory, he may wonder how the other 284 varieties may have tasted, which would diminish the utility of any cookie consumption.

On an even more practical note, let’s analyze the summer ToK book selection process. Looking over the language of the assignment, there were, “in no particular order,” 16 suggested books. However, “by no means [were students] restricted to this list” as they were “merely suggestions.” As a result, we were also open to choose from the hundreds, perhaps thousands of books that would qualify as acceptable ToK readings. From a glance at the assignment, most students would probably think it would be effortless to come up with an acceptable book. Considering this logically, however, so many readily available choices would hamper our efforts. When we went to the Amazon page to copy the link of our book selection, the website provided us the “Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed” section. As motivated students, we would feel obliged, or at least tempted, to compare other possible selections and ensure that we have the "perfect" book to analyze. As a result, Amazon could constantly generate an endless number of book options for us to view.

Certainly, choices are not consequence free. While a handful of choices may enhance our satisfaction, too many choices would detract from the effectiveness of our decision. This predicament along with the difficulties of choosing will be discussed in my next entry.