Re: [armchair] Re: Too many choices
- Original Message - From: Sampo Syreeni [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 6:33 PM Subject: [armchair] Re: Too many choices Schwartz's Parade article does not provide enough information for analysis, but is this a chicken and the egg problem? Perhaps unhappy or clinically depressed people are unable to make decisions, they are overwhelmed by even limited choices. This seems to me the more likely scenario. Based on personal experience, the problems seems to be one of dissatisfaction with the lack of any significant difference between choices. Using Schwartz's example, I don't believe there are 40 distinct and separable toothpastes on the market nor 80 different painkillers. Different brands of essentially the same product do not present a real choice. However, dissatisfaction is not the same thing as being unhappy or clinically depressed. Schwartz also claims clinical depression is 10 times more prevalent in 2000 than 1900, given the relatively primitive state of medical care in 1900 not to mention psychology or psychiatry, Freud started publishing in the late 1890's, Jung well after that, I doubt there are any reliable data on clinical depression rates in 1900 or that the term has the same meaning now vs. 1900. I believe if there is a link between unhappiness and the increase in our choices it is indirect, rather it is due to the increased information requirements necessitated by the number of choices which adds to a general information overload, yet the quantity and variety of information sources makes it difficult to find reliable sources of information, an unhappy situation. I find Schwartz's comments about accepting good enough or as he calls it in his book's title Satisficing, I believe Tyler Cowan has also addressed satisficing in one of his articles. I generally like the concept but I am unsure if it is different from or is just optimization with addition constraints, i.e. time perhaps. I completely disagree with his closing comment that overabundance of choice is a significant cause of unhappiness. That calls to mind a description, I forget where I read it, of shopping in the old communist Russia as,something to the effect, that consumers have the freedom from having to make choices. Ron Baty [EMAIL PROTECTED] On 2004-01-06, Fred Foldvary uttered: He says that as the number of choices we have grows (for products) we become less happy, Is he just guessing, or is there evidence for this? I seem to have heard of some controlled experiments to this effect, in the psychological literature, so I think there might be a small grain of truth to the claim. (As usual, no cite. Take the grain of truth with a grain of salt.) But I also think the problem is elsewhere. Basically, lots of choices are only a problem when you habitually look back, mull over the opportunity cost, and start to hesitate with choice because costs are involved. That's a sure sign of a mindset where people refuse to understand that choices are by definition about not having it both ways. Some of the problem also comes from not acknowledging that sunk costs are indeed sunk, and that that's just fine. From this perspective the idea that lots of choices are bad is simply a symptom of people's unwillingness to conceive of choice the way orthodox economics does. But what really makes me wonder is why these ideas are becoming so commonplace right now. Have people in fact been more economically savvy in the past, or what? And if they have, why the change? (It shouldn't come as a surprise that, as a libertarian, I'm prone to blaming creeping socialism for these sorts of things. ;) -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], tel:+358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2
Re: Too many choices
--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: He says that as the number of choices we have grows (for products) we become less happy, Is he just guessing, or is there evidence for this? that it is too hard to know which toothpaste, for example, to buy. That seems ridiculous. People tend to settle on one brand and stick to it. All of this affluence and choices has made us less happy. Another conclusion from thin air? Could it not be something like less satisfactory relationships, or worry about war, or more stress? It seems that as we become freer to pursue and do whatever we want, we get less and less happy. What data makes it seem so? What do list members think of this? Where's the evidence? If people are too affluent, could they give some of their money away and become happier? This is in fact what many of them do. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Too many choices
On 2004-01-06, Fred Foldvary uttered: He says that as the number of choices we have grows (for products) we become less happy, Is he just guessing, or is there evidence for this? I seem to have heard of some controlled experiments to this effect, in the psychological literature, so I think there might be a small grain of truth to the claim. (As usual, no cite. Take the grain of truth with a grain of salt.) But I also think the problem is elsewhere. Basically, lots of choices are only a problem when you habitually look back, mull over the opportunity cost, and start to hesitate with choice because costs are involved. That's a sure sign of a mindset where people refuse to understand that choices are by definition about not having it both ways. Some of the problem also comes from not acknowledging that sunk costs are indeed sunk, and that that's just fine. From this perspective the idea that lots of choices are bad is simply a symptom of people's unwillingness to conceive of choice the way orthodox economics does. But what really makes me wonder is why these ideas are becoming so commonplace right now. Have people in fact been more economically savvy in the past, or what? And if they have, why the change? (It shouldn't come as a surprise that, as a libertarian, I'm prone to blaming creeping socialism for these sorts of things. ;) -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], tel:+358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2
Too many choices
This week's edition of Parade Magazine has an article byBarry Schwartz, author of the book "The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less." He is a professor of psychology at Swarthmore. He says that as the number of choices we have grows (for products) we become less happy, that it is too hard to know which toothpaste, for example, to buy. All of this affluence and choices has made us less happy. This comes from a survey. The number of people describing themselves as very happy has declined 5% in the last 30 years. We are also more depressed than we used to be. Although no one factor explains this, he writes "It seems that as we become freer to pursue and do whatever we want, we get less and less happy." What do list members think of this? It seems that stores that limited the number of kinds of toothpaste they sell might make higher profits. Are stores aware of this problem and does it affect what they do? Do they hire psychologists to help them sort this kind of thing out? Do people like Schwartz recommend government regulations limiting how many different brands a store can offer? Do economists put much stock in opinion polls? If people keep going to stores that offer them so many choices, that could be revealed preference, so they must think they are happier going to those stores? Do economists have some other explanations for why people are not as happy as they used to be? If people are too affluent, could they give some of their money away and become happier? Cyril Morong
