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The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less - Coggle Diagram
The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less
PART I WHEN WE CHOOSE
Chapter 1. Let’s Go Shopping
discussed how many options there are in all products and services
Chapter 2. New Choices
discussed products that can now be chosen which were previously forced - via availability or regulation e.g. health insurance, retirement plans
choosing a religion, how to raise a family, pick a career
PART II HOW WE CHOOSE
Chapter 3. Deciding and Choosing
Highlights the difficulty in actually knowing what you want, how your memory and brain fails to accurately predict wants/needs - and therefore how we make sub-optimal choices based on experience/expectation
highlights flaws in our information gathering and evaluating e.g availability heuristic influencing what we believe
salience and vivedness of memory influences weight of memory, we may not remember some things we experience
Most good decisions will involve these steps:
Figure out your goal or goals.
Evaluate the importance of each goal.
Array the options.
Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals. 5. Pick the winning option.
Later use the consequences of your choice to modify your goals, the importance you assign them, and the way you evaluate future possibilities
Anchoring - Influences on our comparison processes by available alternatives. E.g. an overpriced coffee makes a cheaper one, but still expensive, an OK daily choice..
Frames and accounts - How we psychologically frame things into various accounts affects how happy we are to make certain choices. E.g. $20 may be expensive for a 'friday night activity' account, but cheap for the 'chance to meet a mate' account which has much more importance. Or doing exercise, if its not just about the short term but the longer term account/goal of getting a mate it becomes more palatable.
Frames and prospects - Prospect Theory - objective vs subjective state graph
We have decreasing marginal utility for gains, but decreasing marginal dis utility for losses i.e. we are willing to lose more when the first loss is presented
Risk averse for potential gains
risk seeking in domain of potential losses
Be a chooser not a picker - consider options thoughtfully wrt your goals in life
Chapter 4. When Only the Best Will Do
Maximizer vs sacrificer - sacrifice has set criteria and is willing to accept something excellent rather than the very best. Maximising may be a great source of dissatisfaction in a world with so many options.
Maximizer quiz results - 5, 6, 2, 2, 4, 2, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 2, 6 - 4
maximizers spend too much time thinking about roads not travelled which is something I do and something I have been striving to stop
The price of maximising
Maximizers were shown to have lower well-being levels and higher depression levels based on standard testing
Maximising and regret
Buyers remorse -
Anticipation of regret
4, 3, 2, 4, 5, - 18 score
Maximizer and sacrifice orientation tense to be domain-specific , and we can apply strategies to become more sacrifice or orientated
once basic needs are met we have competition for scarce goods and this is where being only content with the best hurts us
PART III WHY WE SUFFER
Chapter 5. Choice and Happiness
Choice is a part of expressive value and it allows us to assert our autononomy and display our character
Learnt helplessness - avoid this, use experiences and examples to know that you do have control over your actions and environments.
Choose when to make the effort of choice meaningful to manage the burden and your energy
Make efforts to create social relationships at work and outside of work. it takes time to form deep connections with people, and it takes effort to maintain them.
2 ways to deal with unhappiness one exit and two voice.
Second-order decisions - deciding when to make decisions. E.g. a decision to follow a rule or no w+p, remove the burden of deciding and stick to it. Presumptions are another type - this is like default settings for number situations so most of the time that decision is already made but we can deviate if needed. standards are another type, this is where you divide items into whether they meet the criteria or not and then you can decide amongst those things that meet the criteria picking the first one that works, and making it a habbit to be happy or stick with this decision.
There can be a disconnect between what we want and like..e..g reached that point with w+p where habbit and addiction drives the want not the like.
Chapter 6. Missed Opportunities
Choice abundance leads to making more trade offs, which affects satisfaction of our decisions and can make all options look bad.
All choices have opportunity costs, sometimes hidden
Alternatives with various strengths makes us long for sometimes imaginary options that don't exist which take the best of all features - experiencing this myself with room hunt and jobs hunt
Cumulation of opportunity cost from having to make trade offs can really bring about negative emotion and make us feel bad - no doubt this is why happens to me on the I ternet, w+p being the worst offender. Limit options..
Being able to change our mind can leave us less satisfied with our chosen option since you may now focus less on the strengths of the choice and fail to stop considering pros of the alternatives
Chapter 7. “If Only…”: The Problem of Regret
Investments, crypto are a vehicle for. regret
Post decision regret
Anticipated regret
Omissions bias a bias to downplay omissions when we evaluate the consequences of our decisions. we also seem to can more about omissions in the longer time frame, regretting things we did not do.
Near misses can hurt more than bigger gaps
" When we are responsible for a bad decision we feel more unhappiness and regret due to this responsibility that we had
Counterfactual thinking-this is when we think about the world as it isn't but might be on might have been. This can lead to regret over things that don't even exist. Usually brought about due to something negative occurring. producing downward counterfactuals, where we imagine something worse happening, can actually bring about a sense of satisfaction and gratitude that things didn't turn out worse, you should focus on trying to do this. Upward counterfactual thinking can also help if we only limited and use it to inspire and motivate us to do better but not linger on how we could have done things differently to do better this time.
Regret aversion is very powerful, if we take a riskier option and lose we live with both a potential loss of a sure thing and the actual loss.
inaction inertia - avoid decisions later on to avoid regret of earlier passed opportunity
Obviously maximizers regret more since the only way to avoid regret is by having picked the single best option, for satisficers the stakes are much lower
Chapter 8. Why Decisions Disappoint: The Problem of Adaptation
We get used to things and take them for granted. Perceptual also.
Adaptations can be affected by novelty, and if we spend a lot of time deciding on something we adapt to the decision can be dissapointing
Hedonic adaptation
Hedonic treadmill
Combat adaption with gratitude, thinking long term,
Chapter 9. Why Everything Suffers from Comparison
We compare our experience with what we want, have experienced in the past, expected, think others have
keeping expectations modest is the best way to improve outr well-being and happiness, it also allows us to have pleasant surprises. The challenges how to keep expectations modest even as we experience good things. And one way to do this is to keep wonderful experiences rare try to limit overindulgences or treats
Use social comparison for motivational reasons only, never brood over it.
Social comparison - finding ourselves in one big pond due to the internet can make you discontent with otherwise good conditions. E.g. Comparing myself to others looks wise, dropped that ages ago, health wise etc. Now i need to do so career/salaries/SAVINGS, just keep moving forward at your own pace...it is senseless to ruminate over it..action
Subjective happiness scale - 4, 4, 2, 3
Key ability to distract oneself rather than ruminate over any negative news! Find positive vibes or an aspirational goal
Chapter 10. Whose Fault Is It? Choice, Disappointment, and Depression
Learned helplessness
Having no control can lead to depression. Easy to understand why at times I could be depressed due to my health when it affects the way I feel, look and see myself in the world.
Having control of things in life, like responsibilities can make people happy, give purpose and meaning. This matters for both babies and old people e.g. perhaps extend an aging person's life by having a plant/to care for. Unfortunately my mum hates the idea, I think it would be wonderful for dad, but she has a very dominating negative attitude. When I get older, I'm definitely getting a pet, maybe a dog and cat!
When reflecting on failure, only consider specific, transient and universal reasons. Know that you can do better in different circumstances with another chance, the outcome is not ordained and can otherwise be twisted.
PART IV WHAT WE CAN DO
Chapter 11. What to Do About Choice
Choose when to choose
Find ways to restrict options for some tasks to avoid choice hangovers e.g. try imposing limits on options, knowing when to make a good enough satisficers call
Be a chooser, not a picker
Learn to rely on habbits, customs, norms and rules to make some decisions. Use this extra time created to reflect on areas of your life where decisions matter, find new areas to care about if required
Satisfice more, maximise less
Settle on good for some decisions, avoid some expectations and feeling of regret
Think about the opportunity costs of opportunity cost
Limit thinking of attractive features of the next best option, they have op costs also
Being a satisficers here again is key, you decide good enough and be happy and move on and think about other things in life
Make your decisions non-reversible
This enhances our feelings about the choice we made relative to the alternatives
especially true of big decisions, it allows us to not spent energy Doubting the choice, but allows us to spend time improving the surrounding conditions related to the choice
Practice gratitude
Reflect on the good things in life and how much better they be than the alternatives
Develop a keystone habit around practicing gratitude
Regret less
Satisficer
Reduce options
Practice gratitude for good things in decisions rather than focusing on disappointments with what is bad
Anticipate adaption
We adapt to anything regular
Learn to be satisfied as pleasures turn into comforts overtime
Satisficer strategy to spend less time and energy agonising over research and decisions
Satisfaction treadmill - gratitude again helps to feel content, spend some time imagining how things could be worse or feeling worse
Control expectations
Evaluation of experience is substantially influenced by how it compares to our expectations
allow for serendipity
Curtail social comparison
Compare less, be satisfied more > satifcer mindset on lower order things
focus on what makes you happy and give meaning to your life
Learn to love constraints
Limiting possibilities again on low stake decisions help reduce decisions
apply basic rules to some decisions e.g. always wear a seatbelt, removes the thinking
Prologue. The Paradox of Choice: A Road Map