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So by forcing us to look around at what others are doing before we make decisions, the world of bountiful options is encouraging a process that will often, if not always, leave us feeling worse about our decisions than we would if we hadn’t engaged in the process to begin with. Here is yet another reason why increasing the available options will decrease our satisfaction with what we choose.
When the results of decisions—about trivial things or important ones, about items of consumption or about jobs and relationships—are disappointing, we ask why. And when we ask why, the answers we come up with frequently have us blaming ourselves.
The different reactions of the two groups caused researchers to conclude that it is not dancing toy animals that are an endless source of delight for infants, but rather having control. Infants kept smiling and cooing at the display because they seemed to know that they made it happen. “I did this. Isn’t it great. And I can do it again whenever I want.” The other infants, those who got the display for “free,” did not have this exhilarating experience of control.
Optimists say things like “I got an A” and “She gave me a C.” Pessimists say things like “I got a C” and “He gave me an A.” And it is the pessimists who are candidates for depression.
is much easier to blame yourself for disappointing results in a world that provides unlimited choice than in a world in which options are limited.
The key fact about psychological life in societies in which you have little control over these aspects of life is that you also have little expectation of control.
To be less individualistic—to tie oneself tightly into networks of family, friends, and community—is to be bound, to some degree, by the needs of family, friends, and community.
There is an inherent tension between being your own person, or determining your own “self,” and meaningful involvement in social groups. Significant social involvement requires subordinating the self.
we have found a strong positive relation between maximizing and measures of depression. Among people who score highest on our Maximization Scale, scores on the standard measure of depression are in the borderline clinical depression range.
As a society, we have achieved what our ancestors could, at most, only dream about, but it has come at a great price. We get what we say we want, only to discover that what we want doesn’t satisfy us to the degree that we expect. We are surrounded by modern, time-saving devices, but we never seem to have enough time.
the ability to choose enables you to get a better car, house, job, vacation, or coffeemaker, but the process of choice makes you feel worse about what you’ve chosen, you really haven’t gained anything from the opportunity to choose.
we must decide which choices in our lives really matter and focus our time and energy there, letting many other opportunities pass us by.
For example, you could make it a rule to visit no more than two stores when shopping for clothing or to consider no more than two locations when planning a vacation.
Unfortunately, there are no insistent instructions from society about shopping too much. Nor, perhaps, has it been obvious to you that choice overload gives you a hangover. Until now.
Choosers have the time to modify their goals; pickers do not. Choosers have the time to avoid following the herd; pickers do not. Good decisions take time and attention, and the only way we can find the needed time and attention is by choosing our spots.
everybody satisfices in at least some areas of life, because even for the most fastidious, it’s impossible to be a maximizer about everything. The trick is to learn to embrace and appreciate satisficing, to cultivate it in more and more aspects of life, rather than merely being resigned to it.
To become a satisficer, however, requires that you think carefully about your goals and aspirations, and that you develop well-defined standards for what is “good enough” whenever you face a decision.
the more we think about opportunity costs, the less satisfaction we’ll derive from whatever we choose. So we should make an effort to limit how much we think about the attractive features of options we reject.
Will the satisficer earn less from investments than the maximizer? Perhaps. Will she be less satisfied with the results? Probably not. Will she have more time available to devote to other decisions that matter to her? Absolutely.
You’ll encounter plenty of new things anyway. Your friends and coworkers will tell you about products they’ve bought or vacations they’ve taken. So you’ll stumble onto improvements on your habitual choices without going looking for them. 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
Knowing that you’ve made a choice that you will not reverse allows you to pour your energy into improving the relationship that you have rather than constantly second-guessing it.
When life is not too good, we think a lot about how it could be better. When life is going well, we tend not to think much about how it could be worse.
Our challenge is to remember that the high-quality sound system, the luxury car, and the ten-thousand-square-foot house won’t keep providing the pleasure they give when we first experience them. Learning to be satisfied as pleasures turn into mere comforts will ease disappointment with adaptation when it occurs.
