I recently read the excellent Paradox of Choice, by Barry Schwartz. Schwartz argues persuasively how a world with 29 different types of pasta sauce to choose from leads to anxiety, depression, and other problems. After reading the book, I began to think that happiness depended on reducing the number of options before us, either as a society or artificially as an individual.
Then I encountered Malcolm Gladwell’s TED talk about Howard Moskowitz, in which he argues, also persuasively, that having 29 types of pasta sauce to choose from has been one of the greatest contributions toward our happiness in the last few years.
So on the one hand, more pasta sauce causes anxiety and depression; on the other, it makes us happier.
Either one of them is wrong, or there’s a way to reconcile these views. I’ve been trying to reconcile them, and this is what I’ve got.
I think what Gladwell observes is that we now have enough types of pasta sauce to please everyone’s taste—if you can figure out which one you like best. What Schwartz observes is that figuring out which one you like best is exhausting, especially when pasta sauce is only one of 20 items on your grocery list, and grocery shopping is only one of your weekend chores.
Gladwell’s talk is a good tonic for the nostalgia lurking in the background of the Paradox of Choice. There are passages where Schwartz seems to long for the good old days of a more restrictive society where someone else decided what sort of sauce tasted good enough and you just bought the only one that was available.
On the other hand, Schwartz’s discussion of opportunity cost illustrates the negative consequences of the increased choice that Gladwell celebrates. The basic idea is this: If I really like chunky mushroom pasta sauce but I also like four cheese and spinach pasta sauce almost as well, then I’m robbed of some of my enjoyment of chunky mushroom because I know I’m not eating four cheese and spinach, and I know that would have been a good experience, and in a way I’m paying the cost of not eating it. In other words, the value to me of the best option is only as good as the difference between that and the second best option, which might be quite small. Plus I have the added stress of repeatedly making these kinds of choices.
1 comment:
Although you wrote with the intent to reconcile the different opinions, I'm curious to hear about your personal experience. Do you feel happy that you have many choices in life or are you stressed about having to make a choice? Or both?
Personally, I think you can't help but experience both arguements. I find that the stress felt when making choices is inversely proportional to the value of the difference between the choices. How to resolve this stress surrounding choices with minimal benefit difference? Avoid it (the stress, that is). Just randomly pick your choices and live with the benefits and consequences associated with it. We worry too much about making the best choice, or worse, making the wrong choice. When it comes to a lot of daily activities, there really is no wrong choice and we get stressed out over nothing at all. You're life won't be radically impacted by picking the wrong pasta sauce or which lane to stay in during a traffic jam. In many situations it's just easier to cope with a choice than it is to make the choice. If someone were to come along and tell you which pasta sauce you were going to have for dinner, would you really care? Not really (unless you have a food-related allergy). You'd simply eat the pasta and then move on.
One thing that I'd be curious to hear your opinion about is how having so many choices have impacted modern youth and how this impact will shape our future of our society.
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