Consumer Vertigo

A new wave of social critics claim that freedom's just another word for way too much to choose. Here's why they're wrong.

Virginia Postrel from the June 2005 issue

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Neither selection included extremely common flavors such as strawberry and raspberry, and the smaller groups also eliminated unpopular jams such as lemon curd and red currant. "Careful attention was given to selecting a product with which most consumers would be familiar, yet not so familiar that preferences would already be firmly established," write researchers Sheena S. Iyengar of Columbia and Mark R. Lepper of Stanford.

The results were striking: Thirty percent of the customers who tasted jams from the small selection later bought a jar, compared to only 3 percent of those who sampled from 24 different flavors. "Having 'too much' choice seems...to have hampered their later motivation to buy," report Iyengar and Lepper. More sample choices made the jams less appealing.

It's possible, of course, that a large display attracted a different sort of customer: people like me who never buy jam but were intrigued by the huge variety. And the 24 samples did in fact attract more tasters. Sixty percent of the shoppers who saw that display stopped for a sample, compared to 40 percent with the smaller layout.

But that difference alone can't explain a tenfold difference in jam buying. Something important seems to be missing from the simple social science model that says that since we're always free to ignore some alternatives, expanding options inevitably makes us better off.

Human minds aren't that rational. We don't ignore or forget forgone alternatives. We often fret over them. And knowing we may regret any particular decision, sometimes we simply won't choose.

In another study by the same researchers, also recounted by Schwartz, subjects were shown a group of Godiva chocolates and asked which chocolate they would buy for themselves, based on the name and look of each. Half chose from six chocolates and half chose from 30. (The experiment limited its subjects to people who liked chocolate but didn't regularly buy Godiva.)

Those who selected from the larger group took longer to make a decision. In a survey after the experiment, they were more likely to say there were "too many" chocolates to choose from and that choosing was frustrating and difficult. But they were also more likely to say that choosing was enjoyable--a result Schwartz omits from his book. People don't dislike choice, even overwhelming choice. They have mixed feelings about it. And in the real world, especially the real marketplace, they often have help making decisions.

It's true that human minds cannot evaluate an infinite number of choices, and that we're prone to feel regret when we think about the alternatives we've forgone. But human beings aren't biologically evolved to live in subzero temperatures or keep their teeth much beyond the age of 40 either. Culture and technology matter as much as biology.

For good scientific reasons, psychology experiments systematically screen out the habits and business practices that make real-life choices, especially shopping decisions, manageable. The experiments are designed to understand the mind, not the market.

Ralphs shoppers aren't overwhelmed by 724 kinds of produce because they don't experience every variety as a separate choice. The exotic fruits are grouped together, as are the potatoes and yams, the lettuce bags, and the apples. Godiva sells its chocolates in selections--nuts and caramels in one box, dark chocolates in another, truffles in another--not piece by piece. Businesses have strong incentives not just to offer options but to help customers navigate those choices.

Outside the artificial constraints of a psychology experiment, people adapt pretty effectively to proliferating choices. We go back to our favorite restaurant and order the same dish because we know we'll like it. We find a toothpaste that suits us and stick to it. We don't always choose anew.

"Consumers tend to return to the products they usually buy, not even noticing 75% of the items competing for their attention and their dollars," writes Schwartz. "Who but a professor doing research would even stop to consider that there are almost 300 different cookie options to choose among?"

And who but a polemicist pursuing an argument would completely ignore what these habits tell us about the world? In a familiar environment, people aren't overwhelmed by choice. With experience, we learn to negotiate the alternatives. Schwartz may have trouble in The Gap, but a teenager who owns nine pairs of jeans doesn't. As Schwartz himself notes, "A small-town resident who visits Manhattan is overwhelmed by all that is going on. A New Yorker, thoroughly adapted to the city's hyperstimulation, is oblivious to it."

Schwartz treats this habituation as entirely negative, since it's why we lose our appreciation of once-new pleasures. "When it first became possible to get a wide variety of fruits and vegetables at all times of year, I thought I'd found heaven," he writes. "Now I take this year-round bounty for granted and get annoyed if the nectarines from Israel or Peru that I can buy in February aren't sweet and juicy."

Habituation is indeed a fact of human psychology. That's one reason we like novelty, including different cuts of jeans. But grumpy social critics like Schwartz never consider the obvious thought experiment: Would you like to go back to the world with fewer options? Granted, dealing with lots of choices causes frustration and regret. But would you really be happier, once you'd become accustomed to them, if those abundant choices disappeared?