The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less | Barry Schwartz | Read this Anti-dote to the information...

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less | Barry Schwartz | The Real Deal

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The Paradox of Cho...

	The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less Barry Schwartz Harper Perennial, 2005 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 104 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Read this Anti-dote to the information age insanity

Oh, My, Goodness. We who are embedded in consumer culture so need this book. It will take some time to put the lessons into practice but will be worth it. Think of all the leisure time, satisfaction, and fun we will have!
This is a fun read with an important message. In the style of Blink, the author shares studies and experiences and theory that all converge on one thing: We are not satisfied because we have to many choices.
Then he provides the anti-dote to being overwhelmed by the information age: "Satisficing"
This book could save relationships, as well as personal well-being.
I am now on the path to recovery. I am a recovering optimizer and on the way to being a satisficer!

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The Real Deal

The book may look on the outside like a social, economic, or political critique. But it's actually addressed mostly to individuals, and probably belongs mostly in the self-help category.

Most books of this kind - even some good ones - have only enough interesting ideas to justify a sizeable magazine article. The authors of such books also usually overstate their case drastically by claiming that everything in the world that they don't like can be explained by the one insight that forms the premise of their book.

This book is an exception. It's not long, but that's largely because there's no padding. Schwartz uses several examples to illustrate his point that our modern, economically productive society has provided us with an unprecedented range of choices in areas of our lives where formerly we didn't have to even think hard to make a decision.

For me, one of the most thought-provoking and enjoyable things in the book was the inclusion of many creative and revealing psychological experiments which produced unexpected insights concerning how we make decisions, and what the consequences of the decision-making process are.

Schwartz makes a good case for his thesis that "choice overload" can have a wide range of negative results. And instead of delivering a political diatribe or social critique, blaming politicians or greedy corporations for all of these problems, he addresses himself primarily to his readers, and tells us what he thinks WE as individuals can do to ease the undesirable consequences of having to make too many choices.

The only part of the book I found unconvincing was when Schwartz argues that (1) when people have to make individual choices in too many areas of life, they then have to take responsibility for the results of those choices, and (2) people who take responsibility for most of the things that happen in their lives tend to be unhappier. I'm condensing his argument here, but he definitely does give the impression that he believes that. And I'm here to say that even if people who take responsibility for the results of their actions **are** unhappier, that's just tough. The last thing we need in our society is fewer people who take responsibility for the results of their choices. Just about every failure and every criminal that I have ever met, or known anything about, has REFUSED to accept responsibility for his or her choices - and that's why they're failures and criminals. If taking responsibility increases your stress level, well isn't that just too bad.

But that one disagreement doesn't prevent me from giving the book 5 stars. The book makes so many important points, and explains them so lucidly, persuasively, and non-ideologically, that I think everyone should read it.

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This one is a must-read

Some parts get a little complicated for just a quick read. But, at 240 pages this is a a fun look at the societal and psychological issues we face.

The areas explored are summed up with the following:

"...our experience of choice as a burden rather than a privilege is not a simple phenomenon. Rather it is the result of a complex interaction among many psychological processes that permeate our culture, including rising expectations, awareness of opportunity costs, aversion to trade-offs, adaptation, regret, self-blame, the tendency to engage in social comparisons, and maximizing."

The last chapter goes on to highlight and explain how we can try to avoid these issues (regret leading to depression, leading to suicide; comparing to neighbors and having regret; post-decision regret). A lot of it has to do with accepting "good enough".

Again, I recommend the book because it may help you see your decisions a little differently. At the same time, it helps understand the psychology behind others' decisions.

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A Great Book for Business Owners

I thought this book was most excellent. I took my time reading it but it still went fast. The opening about choosing jeans at the GAP really struck a chord with me. I have had the same dilemma and therefore I only buy two pairs of jeans every 2-3 years. It's confusing. On a business sense this has helped me with providing excellent customer care with AUDIN Web Design. The sense of past loss versus future loss/gains really helped me in my business. I am able to create a pricing model that is able to help my business as well make the customer feel comfortable., If you are a business owner, I suggest you take a look at this book. I've also used this book to evaluate my personal life. Have you been holding onto something because of some (ancient) intrinsic value? This book helped me realized that I have a lot of things that will cost me more in the long run than it would if I just tossed it out. That's the past loss.

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Less is not always more

Schwartz has interesting insight and the book is easy to read. Though some readers may find that Schwartz's ideas are somewhat old fashioned, this is coming from a reader that appreciates the choices available to him. But still I must urge people to read this book because you will begin to look at the choices you make more criticaly than prior to reading The Paradox of Choice. I will admit even though I do not agree with all of Schwartz's theories his knowledge on the psychological point of view of choices are invaluable.

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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