Good Choices

In his paper The Tyranny of Choice, Schwartz provides insightful reference the results of well being assessments by David G. Myers and Robert E. Lane. In which “increased choice and increased affluence have, in fact been accompanied by decreased well being in the U.S… as the GDP more than doubled in the past 30 years, the proportion of the population describing [themselves] as ‘very happy’ declined about 5%, or 14 million [roughly].” Moving on Schwartz starts to elaborate his thesis by explaining why more choices are not necessarily better. He recalls the economic principle of opportunity cost, and makes clear that “the quality of a given option cannot be assessed in isolation from its alternatives.”
Moreover, if we take for granted the fact that such opportunity costs decrease by large the attractiveness of the “best” choice, then the number of alternatives goes up. As a consequence, Schwartz argues many of us experience a state of paralysis that at the same time make the sense of loss bigger. The ultimate result of the exhausting decision process is less satisfaction from the final decision. Schwartz continues by adding more explanatory variables to his thesis. With items such as regret, adaptation, and high expectations being part of the formula of the consequences of having too much to choose from.
The conclusion of the paper is that even though having many options to choose from is a good thing, it is also truth that there is a threshold where more options actually turn into a negative thing. Although, Schwartz does not have an idea as where that threshold is, he suggests that we have long passed it.