PART OF THE DOWNSIDE of abundant choice is that each new option adds to the list of trade-offs, and trade-offs have psychological consequences. The necessity of making trade-offs alters how we feel ab...
Over two centuries ago Adam Smith observed that individual freedom of choice ensures the most efficient production and distribution of society’s goods. A competitive market, unhindered by the governme...
Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues have shown that what we remember about the pleasurable quality of our past experiences is almost entirely determined by two things:...
Most people give substantial weight to anecdotal evidence, perhaps so much that it will cancel out positive recommendations found in consumer reports. People's tendency to give undue weight to some ty...
Most good decisions will involve these steps:1. Figure out your goal or goals.2. Evaluate the importance of each goal.3. Array the options.4. Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your go...
Learning to accept good enough will simplify decision making and increase satisfaction.
Lane writes that we are paying for increased affluence and increased freedom with a substantial decrease in the quality and quantity of social relations.
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.
It is choosers who create new opportunities for themselves and everyone else. But when faced with overwhelming choice, we are forced to become pickers, which is to say, relatively passive selectors fr...
Instead you might consider adopting a simple routine: 1. Keep a notepad at your bedside. 2. Every morning, when you wake up, or every night, when you go to bed, use the notepad to list five things tha...
I think that in modern America, we have far too many options for breakfast cereal and not enough options for president.
I believe that many modern Americans are feeling less and less satisfied even as their freedom of choice expands. This book is intended to explain why this is so and suggest what can be done about it.
Gawande reports that research has shown that patients commonly prefer to have others make their decisions for them. Though as many as 65 percent of people surveyed say that if they were to get cancer,...
As the magnitude of the gain increases, the amount of additional satisfaction people get out of each additional unit decreases. The shape of this curve conforms to what economists have long talked abo...
When faced with overwhelming choice, we are forced to become pickers, which is to say, relatively passive selectors from whatever is available. Being a chooser is better, but to have the time to choos...
Philosopher Isaiah Berlin made an important distinction between negative liberty and positive liberty. Negative liberty is freedom from—freedom from constraint, freedom from being told what to do by o...
Keeping options open seems to extract a psychological price. When we can change our minds, apparently we do less psychological work to justify the decision we’ve made, reinforcing the chosen alternati...
Information costs, is not the way to maximize one’s investment. The true maximizer would determine just how much information seeking was the amount needed to lead to a very good decision.
Choose less and feel better.
When people are looking for causes of failure, they are predisposed to one of these positions. Suppose you apply for a job, but fail to get hired. Here are some possible answers you give.Global: I don...