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the fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better.
We would be better off if we embraced certain voluntary constraints on our freedom of choice, instead of rebelling against them.
We would be better off seeking what was “good enough” instead of seeking the best
the modern university is a kind of intellectual shopping mall.
the “voluntary simplicity” movement.
According to a survey conducted by Yankelovich Partners, a majority of people want more control over the details of their lives, but a majority of people also want to simplify their lives. There you have it—the paradox of our times.
research has shown that patients commonly prefer to have others make their decisions for them.
It means that the questions “Where should I work?” and “What kind of work should I do?” are never resolved. Nothing is ever settled.
Later use the consequences of your choice to modify your goals, the importance you assign them, and the way you evaluate future possibilities.
Instead of buying several packages of their favorite X or Y, they buy a variety of Xs and Ys, failing to predict accurately that when the time comes to eat X or Y, they would almost certainly prefer their favorite.
people’s tendency to give undue weight to some types of information in contrast to others. They called it the availability heuristic.
The availability heuristic says that we assume that the more available some piece of information is to memory, the more frequently we must have encountered it in the past. This heuristic is partly true. In general, the frequency of experience does affect its availability to memory. But frequency of experience is not the only thing that affects availability to memory. Salience or vividness matters as well.
When a wristwatch that is no more accurate than one you can buy for $50 sells for $20,000, it seems reasonable to buy one for $2,000.
KAHNEMAN AND TVERSKY HAVE USED THEIR RESEARCH ON FRAMING and its effects to construct a general explanation of how we go about evaluating options and making decisions. They call it prospect theory.
Some studies have estimated that losses have more than twice the psychological impact as equivalent gains.
the first choice you must make is between the goal of choosing the absolute best and the goal of choosing something that is good enough.
To satisfice is to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better.
When reality requires maximizers to compromise—to end a search and decide on something—apprehension about what might have been takes over.
To a maximizer, satisficers appear to be willing to settle for mediocrity,
Maximizers want everything they do to be just right, which can lead to unhealthy self-criticism.
Maximizers spend more time than satisficers thinking about “roads not traveled.”
Maximizers tend to brood or ruminate more than satisficers.
What is even worse is that you can actually experience regret in anticipation of making a decision. You imagine how you’ll feel if you discover that there was a better option available.
maximizing is not a measure of efficiency. It is a state of mind.
While maximizers and perfectionists both have very high standards, I think that perfectionists have very high standards that they don’t expect to meet, whereas maximizers have very high standards that they do expect to meet.
Adding options doesn’t necessarily add much work for the satisficer, because the satisficer feels no compulsion to check out all the possibilities before deciding.
The choice of when to be a chooser may be the most important choice we have to make.
What seems to be the most important factor in providing happiness is close social relations.
the rate of cohabitation without marriage (which actually is a pretty good predictor of eventual divorce)
In other words, our social fabric is no longer a birthright but has become a series of deliberate and demanding choices.
Time is the ultimate scarce resource, and for some reason, even as one “time-saving” bit of technology after another comes our way, the burdens on our time seem to increase.
ESTABLISHING AND MAINTAINING MEANINGFUL SOCIAL RELATIONS requires a willingness to be bound or constrained by them, even when dissatisfied.
In the marketplace, exit is the characteristic response to dissatisfaction.
Does social media change this
AS THE STAKES OF DECISIONS RISE, WE FEEL AN INCREASED NEED TO justify them. We feel compelled to articulate—at least to ourselves—why we made a particular choice. This need to search for reasons seems useful; it ought to improve the quality of our choices. But it doesn’t necessarily.
We all learn as we grow up that living requires making choices and passing up opportunities. But our evolutionary history makes this a difficult lesson. Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard.
And when the counterfactual thoughts begin to occur, they trigger more negative emotions, like regret, which in turn trigger more counterfactual thinking, which in turn triggers more negative emotion. Though most people can manage to suppress their counterfactual thoughts before they spin too far down this vicious spiral, some—especially those who suffer from clinical depression—may not be able to arrest the downward pull.
What I do with my computer hasn’t changed all that much over the years. But what I expect it to do for me has.
Because of adaptation, enthusiasm about positive experiences doesn’t sustain itself. And what’s worse, people seem generally unable to anticipate that this process of adaptation will take place. The waning of pleasure or enjoyment over time always seems to come as an unpleasant surprise.
it is hedonic adaptation, or adaptation to pleasure.
Falling back is the American nightmare.”
So instead of comparing ourselves to everyone, we try to mark off the world in such a way that in our pond, in comparison with our reference group, we are successful.
Not everyone will have the most interesting job. Not everyone can be the boss. Not everyone can go to the best college or belong to the best country club. Not everyone can be treated by the “best” doctor in the “best” hospital. Hirsch calls goods like these positional goods, because how likely anyone is to get them depends upon his position in society.
Happy people have the ability to distract themselves and move on, whereas unhappy people get stuck ruminating and make themselves more and more miserable.
the modern emphasis on individual autonomy and control may be neutralizing a crucial vaccine against depression: deep commitment and belonging to social groups and institutions—families, civic associations, faith communities, and the like.
If you sit back and let “new and improved” find you, you’ll spend a lot less time choosing and experience a lot less frustration over the fact that you can’t find an alternative that combines all the things you like into one neat package.
