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5a83c81
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Much of human progress has involved reducing the time and energy, as well as the number of processes we have to engage in and think about, for each of us to obtain the necessities of life.
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Barry Schwartz |
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c77201a
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Lane writes that we are paying for increased affluence and increased freedom with a substantial decrease in the quality and quantity of social relations.
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Barry Schwartz |
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692005c
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Apparently we always think we want choice, but when we actually get it, we may not like it. Meanwhile, the need to chose in ever more aspects of life causes us more distress than we realize.
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Barry Schwartz |
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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 government and filled with entrepreneurs eager to pinpoint consumers' needs and desires, will be exquisitely responsive to them.
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Barry Schwartz |
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b6bf132
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But if money doesn't do it for people, what does? What seems to be the most important factor in providing happiness is close social relations. People who are married, who have good friends and who are close to their families are happier than those who are not. Being connected to other seems to be much more important to subjective well-being than being rich.
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Barry Schwartz |
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8cd2e1d
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Americans spent about $27 billion on nontraditional remedies, most of them unproven.
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Barry Schwartz |
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6de3a2f
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And once people are in the position to be able to work at any time from any place, they face decisions every minute of every day about whether or not to be working.
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Barry Schwartz |
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e3d09c4
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CHOOSING WELL IS DIFFICULT, AND MOST DECISIONS HAVE SEVERAL different dimensions.
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Barry Schwartz |
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3445a70
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The ideal legal system, mused Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Cardozo, "would be a code at once so flexible and so minute, as to supply in advance for every conceivable situation the just and fitting rule."
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Barry Schwartz |
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If society asks more of us, and arranges its social institutions appropriately, it will get more.
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Barry Schwartz |
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8132149
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I think that in modern America, we have far too many options for breakfast cereal and not enough options for president.
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Barry Schwartz |
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ad82186
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As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates. It might even be said to tyrannize,
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Barry Schwartz |
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7990801
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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 goals. 5. Pick the winning option. 6. Later use the consequences of your choice to modify your goals, the importance you assign to them, and the way you evaluate future possibilities.
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Barry Schwartz |
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ffb0884
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The very wealth of options before us may turn us from choosers into pickers. A chooser is someone who thinks actively about the possibilities before making a decision. A chooser reflects on what's important to him or her in life, what's important about this particular decision, and what the short- and long-range consequences of the decision may be. A chooser makes decisions in a way that reflects awareness of what a given choice means about..
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Barry Schwartz |
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304ce3b
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Every choice we make is a testament to our autonomy, to our sense of self-determination. Almost every social, moral, or political philosopher in the Western tradition since Plato has placed a premium on such autonomy. And each new expansion of choice gives us another opportunity to assert our autonomy, and this display our character.
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Barry Schwartz |
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Having the opportunity to choose is no blessing if we feel we do not have the wherewithal to choose wisely.
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Barry Schwartz |
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If people think about options in terms of their features rather than as a whole, different options may rank as second best (or even best) with respect to each individual feature.
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Barry Schwartz |
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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 choose more and pick less, we must be willing to rely on habits, customs, norms, and rules to make some decisions automatic."
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Barry Schwartz |
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IT IS MAXIMIZERS WHO SUFFER MOST IN A CULTURE THAT PROVIDES too many choices.
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Barry Schwartz |
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Learning to accept "good enough" will simplify decision making and increase satisfaction."
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Barry Schwartz |
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d984a0a
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Now students are required to make choices about education that may affect them for the rest of their lives. And they are forced to make these choices at a point in their intellectual development when they may lack the resources to make them intelligently.
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Barry Schwartz |
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1b4fe2d
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In a recent survey, 93 percent of teenage girls surveyed said that shopping was their favorite activity. Mature women also say they like shopping, but working women say that shopping is a hassle, as do most men.
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Barry Schwartz |
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we have too many choices, too many decisions, too little time to do what is really important.
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Barry Schwartz |
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So is a theory about human nature a discovery, or is it an invention? I believe that often, it is more invention than discovery. I think that ideas, like Adam Smith's, about what motivates people to work have shaped the nature of the workplace. I think they have shaped the workplace in directions that are unfortunate. What this means is that instead of walking around thinking that "well, work just is what it is, and we have to deal with it,..
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Barry Schwartz |
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ca8dc7c
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The trouble was that with all these options available to me now, I was no longer sure that "regular" jeans were what I wanted. Perhaps the easy fit or the relaxed fit would be more comfortable."
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Barry Schwartz |
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337c16f
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Being able to criticize our own certainties is often a painful struggle, demanding some courage as we try to stand back and impartially judge ourselves and our own responsibility.
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Barry Schwartz |
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The Paradox of Choice has a simple yet profoundly life-altering message for all Americans. Schwartz's eleven practical, simple steps to becoming less choosey will change much in your daily life.... Buy This Book Now!" --PHILIP G. ZIMBARDO,"
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Barry Schwartz |
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To these three comparisons I have added a fourth: the gap between what one has and what one expects.
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Barry Schwartz |
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1579665
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In a world of scarcity, opportunities don't present themselves in bunches, and the decisions people face are between approach and avoidance, acceptance or rejection.
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Barry Schwartz |
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The mistake is to assume that the way it feels at the moment is the way it will feel forever.
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Barry Schwartz |
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The key thing to appreciate, though, is that what is most important to us, most of the time, is not the objective results of decisions, but the subjective results.
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Barry Schwartz |
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The fact that counterfactual thinking seems to hone in on the controllable aspects of a situation only increases the chances that a person will experience regret when engaging in counterfactual thinking.
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Barry Schwartz |
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According to standard economic assumptions, the only opportunity costs that should figure into a decision are the ones associated with the next-best alternative.
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Barry Schwartz |
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We would be better off if we lowered our expectations about the results of decisions
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Barry Schwartz |
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The ubiquitous feature of human psychology is a process known as . Simply put, we used get to things and then we start to take them for granted.
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Barry Schwartz |
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theme we will pursue throughout this book, which is this: When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives ..
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Barry Schwartz |
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the fact that some choice is good doesn't necessarily mean that more choice is better.
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Barry Schwartz |
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there is a cost to having an overload of choice.
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Barry Schwartz |
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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 others. Positive liberty is "freedom to"--the availability of opportunities to be the author of your life and to make it meaningful and significant."
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Barry Schwartz |
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ea92efa
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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.
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Barry Schwartz |
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83192ca
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people with high maximization scores experienced less satisfaction with life, were less happy, were less optimistic, and were more depressed than people with low maximization scores.
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Barry Schwartz |
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Whereas maximizers might do better objectively than satisficers, they tend to do worse subjectively.
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Barry Schwartz |
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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."
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Barry Schwartz |
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While maximizers and perfectionists both have very high standards, I think that perfectionists have very high standards that they don't expect to meet, whereas maximizers have very high standards that they do expect to meet. Which may explain why we found that those who score high on perfectionism, unlike maximizers, are not depressed, regretful, or unhappy.
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Barry Schwartz |