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1 TheTyrannyofLogic suggests that havingoptions allows people to select precisely whatmakes them happiest. But as, studies show,abundant choice oftenmakes for misery By Barry Schwartzmericans today choose among moreoptions in more parts of life than hasever been possible before. To an extent, the opportunity to chooseenhances our lives. It is only logical to think that if some choice isgood, more is better; people who care about having infinite optionswill benefit from them, and those who do not can always just ig-nore the 273 versions of cereal they have never tried. Yet recent re-search strongly suggests that, psychologically, this assumption iswrong.

2 Although some choice is undoubtedly better than none,more is not always better than evidence is consistent with large-scale social of well-being by various social scientists amongthem, David G. Myers ofHope College and Robert of Yale University re-veal that increased choice andincreased affluence have, infact, been accompanied bydecreased well-being in and most other affluent societies. As the gross domestic prod-uct more than doubled in the past 30 years, the proportion of thepopulation describing itself as very happy declined by about 5percent, or by some 14 million people. In addition, more of us thanever are clinically depressed.

3 Of course, no one believes that a sin-gle factor explains decreased well-being, but a number of findingsindicate that the explosion of choice plays an important , it seems that as society grows wealthier and people be-come freer to do whatever they want, they get less happy. In an eraof ever greater personal autonomy, choice and control, what couldaccount for this degree of misery?Along with several colleagues, I have recently conducted re-search that offers insight into why many people end up unhappyrather than pleased when their options expand. We began by mak-ing a distinction between maximizers (those who always aim tomake the best possible choice) and satisficers (those who aim for good enough, whether or not better selections might be outthere).

4 We borrowed the term satisficers from the late NobelPrize winning psychologist and economist Herbert A. Simon ofCarnegie Mellon University. In particular, we composed a set of statements the Maxi-mization Scale to diagnose people s propensity tomaximize. Then we had several thousand people ratethemselves from 1 to 7 (from completely disagree AChoiceto completely agree ) on such statements as I never settlefor second best. We also evaluated their sense of satisfactionwith their did not define a sharp cutoff to separate maximizers fromsatisficers, but in general, we think of individuals whose averagescores are higher than 4 (the scale s midpoint) as maximizers andthose whose scores are lower than the midpoint as who score highest on the test the greatest maximizers engage in more product comparisons than the lowest scorers,both before and after they make purchasing decisions, and theytake longer to decide what to buy.

5 When satisficers find an itemthat meets their standards, they stop looking. But maximizersexert enormous effort reading labels, checking out consumermagazines and trying new products. They also spend more timecomparing their purchasing decisions with those of , no one can check out every option, but maxi-mizers strive toward that goal, and so making a decision be-comes increasingly daunting as the number of choices , after making a selection, they are nagged by the alter-natives they have not had time to investigate. In the end, they aremore likely to make better objective choices than satisficers butget less satisfaction from them. When reality requires maximiz-ers to compromise to end a search and decide on something apprehension about what might have been takes found as well that the greatest maximizers are the leasthappy with the fruits of their efforts.

6 When they compare them-selves with others, they get little pleasure from finding out thatthey did better and substantial dissatisfaction from finding outthat they did worse. They are more prone to experiencing regretafter a purchase, and if their acquisition disappoints them, theirsense of well-being takes longer to recover. They also tend tobrood or ruminate more than satisficers it follow that maximizers are less happy in general thansatisficers? We tested this by having people fill out a variety ofquestionnaires known to be reliable indicators of well-being. Asmight be expected, individuals with high maximization scoresexperienced less satisfaction with life and were less happy, lessoptimistic and more depressed than people with low maximiza-tion scores.

7 Indeed, those with extreme maximization ratings haddepression scores that placed them in the borderline clinical for UnhappinessSEVERAL FACTORS EXPLAINwhy more choice is not al-ways better than less, especially for maximizers. High amongthese are opportunity costs. The quality of any given optioncannot be assessed in isolation from its alternatives. One of the costs of making a selection is losing the opportunities that adifferent option would have afforded. Thus, an opportunitycost of vacationing on the beach in Cape Cod might be missingthe fabulous restaurants in the Napa Valley. If we assume thatopportunity costs reduce the overall desirability of the most pre-ferred choice, then the more alternatives there are, the deeperour sense of loss will be and the less satisfaction we will derivefrom our ultimate Brenner of the University of Florida and his collabora-MATT COLLINS (preceding pages and above); ADAPTED BY PERMISSION FROM THE JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2002 BY THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION (this page)THE MAXIMIZATION SCALETHE STATEMENTS BELOW distinguish maximizers fromsatisficers.

8 Subjects rate themselves from 1 to 7, from completely disagree to completely agree, on eachstatement. We generally consider people whose averagerating is higher than 4 to be maximizers. When we looked ataverages from thousands of subjects, we found that about a third scored higher than and a third lower than 10 percent of subjects were extreme maximizers(averaging greater than ), and 10 percent were extremesatisficers (averaging lower than ) I m faced with a choice, I try to imagine whatall the other possibilities are, even ones that aren tpresent at the matter how satisfied I am with my job, it s only rightfor me to be on the lookout for better opportunities.

9 When I am in the car listening to the radio, I often checkother stations to see if something better is playing, evenif I am relatively satisfied with what I m listening I watch TV, I channel surf, often scanning throughthe available options even while attempting to watchone treat relationships like clothing: I expect to try a loton before finding the perfect often find it difficult to shop for a gift for a videos is really difficult. I m always strugglingto pick the best one. When shopping, I have a hard time finding clothing that I really m a big fan of lists that attempt to rank things (the best movies, the best singers, the best athletes,the best novels, etc.)

10 I find that writing is very difficult, even if it s just writinga letter to a friend, because it s so hard to word thingsjust right. I often do several drafts of even simple matter what I do, I have the highest standards for never settle for second often fantasize about living in ways that are quitedifferent from my actual 2004tors demonstrated the effects of opportunity costs when theyhad subjects put a dollar value on subscriptions to magazines orflights from San Francisco to attractive locations. Some attachedprices to a single magazine subscription or a single attached prices to the same magazine or destinationwhen it was part of a group containing three others.