Paradox of choice

The paradox of choice is the finding that more options do not always make for better decisions. Up to a point, variety helps: you are more likely to find something that suits you. Past that point, comparing everything becomes a chore, the fear of picking wrong grows, and people put off the decision, abandon it or settle it in a way that has little to do with what they wanted. A wall of options can feel like freedom in the aisle and like work at the register.

The jam study

The research that made the idea famous was published in 2000 by the psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper, using a field experiment run at Draeger’s, an upscale supermarket in Menlo Park, California, known for its enormous range, including more than 300 kinds of jam. On two Saturdays, researchers set up a tasting booth for a brand of English jams. Every hour they switched the display between 24 flavors and 6. To keep the test fair, the most common flavors such as strawberry and raspberry were left out, and the six-flavor set was chosen from the middle of a taste survey, neither the most nor the least appealing.

The big display drew more attention. Of 242 shoppers who walked past the 24 jams, 60 percent stopped to taste. Of 260 who passed the 6 jams, 40 percent stopped. Tasters at both tables sampled about the same number of flavors, around one and a half. Everyone who stopped got a coupon for $1 off a jar, valid for a week.

The coupons told the rest of the story. Of those who had stopped at the six-jam table, 30 percent later bought a jar. Of those who had stopped at the 24-jam table, 3 percent did. The bigger display attracted more people and sold far less. Two more studies in the same paper found similar patterns: people choosing from six chocolates were more satisfied with their pick than those choosing from 30, and students given six essay topics for extra credit were more likely to write the essay than those given 30.

What later research found

In 2004 the psychologist Barry Schwartz brought the idea to a wide audience in The Paradox of Choice, arguing that endless options leave people less satisfied and more prone to regret. Then researchers tried to measure how general the effect was. A 2010 meta-analysis by Benjamin Scheibehenne, Rainer Greifeneder and Peter Todd pooled 63 conditions from 50 experiments, with 5,036 participants, and found an average effect of virtually zero, with wide variation between studies.

A 2015 meta-analysis by Alexander Chernev, Ulf Böckenholt and Joseph Goodman, covering 99 results with 7,202 participants, explained much of that variation. Choice overload showed up reliably under four conditions: when the set of options was complex, when the decision task was difficult, when people were unsure what they preferred and when they mainly wanted to get the decision over with. Under those conditions, the effect was significant. That describes a great deal of real shopping.

Why too many options backfire

Each extra option adds comparisons, and each comparison costs time and attention. A long menu also raises the stakes of choosing badly, since with so much on offer, a perfect match seems to exist somewhere, and settling for less feels like a mistake. People who try hard to find the very best option suffer most. Faced with all that, the easiest exits are to walk away, to buy whatever is labeled most popular or to take a bundle that makes the decision for you.

How overload runs a chain

Overload rarely ends with no purchase at all. More often it ends with a bigger one. Shopping for a stroller, you find more than forty models, each with its own folding system and accessories. After two evenings of comparisons you buy a $1,100 travel system, a stroller, car seat, base and bassinet sold as one, because it ends the decision. The system comes with its own range of extras: a $60 rain cover, a $25 cup holder, a $45 organizer, a second $130 base for the other car. Choosing the set felt like relief, and the set brought a shopping list.

How sellers handle the overload

• Trimmed menus. Some stores cut their range so shoppers commit faster, and the jam study is often cited to justify it.
• Ways out of the maze. Others keep the range long and add a shortcut, such as a “most popular” badge, a recommended pick or a quiz that ends in a product kit.
• Bundles and systems. A coordinated set removes dozens of small decisions at once, at a price.
• Premium defaults. When choosing is hard, the preselected option, often a pricier one, wins by default. A decoy nearby makes it look even better.

How to choose without overload

1. Set criteria before you browse. Write down the three or four things the item must do and your price limit, then look only at options that meet them.
2. Cap the shortlist at three. Narrow the field quickly, then compare only the finalists.
3. Take the first good enough option. Instead of hunting for the single best choice, buy the first one that meets every criterion. It removes most of the regret.
4. Notice when relief is selling. If the length of the menu is pushing you toward a bundle or the most expensive model, stop. Come back with a list, or use the 30-day rule to separate the decision from the fatigue.

Where it meets the Diderot effect

A spending chain multiplies decisions. Each new purchase opens another aisle of things that are supposed to go with it, and the Diderot effect makes every one of them feel necessary. Overload then makes the coordinated set look like the easy answer: buy the whole look, the whole kit, the whole room. That is the set sold as relief from choosing. The cure for both is to decide in advance what belongs in your life. A personal uniform is that decision made once for a wardrobe, and stores designed to keep you browsing, as the Gruen effect describes, depend on you not having made it.