by Barry Schwartz
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| List Price: | $23.95 |
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| Lowest New Price: | $18.65 |
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Product Description
Whether we're buying a pair of jeans, ordering a cup of coffee, selecting a long-distance carrier, applying to college, choosing a doctor, or setting up a 401(k), everyday decisions -- both big and small -- have become increasingly complex due to the overwhelming abundance of choice with which we are presented. As Americans, we assume that more choice means better options and greater satisfaction. But beware of excessive choice: choice overload can make you question the decisions you make before you even make them, it can set you up for unrealistically high expectations, and it can make you blame yourself for any and all failures. In the long run, this can lead to decision-making paralysis, anxiety, and perpetual stress. And, in a culture that tells us that there is no excuse for falling short of perfection when your options are limitless, too much choice can lead to clinical depression. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice -- the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish -- becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice -- from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs -- has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counter intuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 A Must-Read Manual for Those Suffering from Mall Malaise, 2008-08-15
The unease that has been plaguing me for years now -- I call it "Mall Malaise," finally has scientific basis! It appears to be true - instead of choice bringing more happiness, it actually can frustrate and depress us when taken to the extreme.
Schwartz's easy-to-read analysis of the pluses and minuses of choice, coupled with scientific/psychological studies on why we feel as we do, will help a generation of overachievers and overconsumers find peace in the midst of plenty.
My favorite part -- instead of just explaining the phenomenon, Schwartz provides suggestions on how to mitigate the negative effects of too much choice.
I feel better already.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Insightful, Never Boring, 2008-08-13
In this book, Schwartz explores why people make strange decisions, why we can often make decisions that are totally irrational and why the plethora of today's choices make it hard for decisions makers to be content with the decisions they've made after they've made them. Schwartz presents the latest research on why some people seem so happy with a decision they've made when presented with few alternatives and why some people fret over decisions where no avenue has been left unexplored. Nothing too deep here but I found the book very engaging. This would be a great book for someone to read over a weekend.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Repetitive and pedantic, 2008-08-02
The author's point is that having too many choices doesn't improve life; and, in fact, it can even be detrimental. It takes extra energy and thought to choose from among the dizzying array of choices that surround us; but that effort doesn't yield a corresponding increase in satisfaction with our choice and often yields _less_ satisfaction than if we had made a decision faster. That's it. That's the whole book. A person could read the first two chapters, the last two chapters, skip the (largely repetitive and very pedantic) middle of the book and still get the basic take-away message.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Provides an interesting look at how too much choice has a negative impact on well-being, 2008-07-22
My husband and I, both professionals (he's an attorney, I'm a psychologist), had previously had many conversations about how the plethora of choices available in modern-day life--from being able to find virtually every TV program ever made online to owning an iPod that can hold every song we'd want to hear to having access to endless reviews on amazon whenever we need to purchase a new product--somehow seemed detrimental to us, although we were never able to quite put our finger on the precise nature of the problem. So, when we came across the book The Paradox of Choice, we were amazed to find that author Barry Schwartz had done research into exactly phenomenon we had been discussing with each other.
In this book, Schwartz makes a distinction between "satisficers," those who are able to ignore the vast majority of options available and accept the first choice which meets all of their needs, versus "maximizers," those who are convinced that the perfect choice exists and who are willing to ignore the costs associated with searching for this "perfect" option. Schwartz does as an excellent job of showing that maximizers tend to be more depressed and anxious. But then he moves away from the specific topic of choice to discuss the more general subject of happiness. Here Schwartz reviews some of my favorite research in psychology, including Dr. Martin Seligman's work with learned helplessness and his more recent expansion into the positive psychology field. Schwartz also references the book Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert; Dr. Gilbert makes the point that we are all particularly poor predictors of what will make us happy.
In the final part of this book, Schwartz offers some strategies for dealing with the overwhelming amount of options in today's world. Although this is certainly not designed as a self-help book per se, these recommendations build on both Schwartz's own research as well as the work of the above-mentioned psychologists and are designed to help the reader find greater happiness amidst the sea of modern-day choice. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a highly readable account of this fascinating topic.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Choices: how to think about it and avoid the pitfalls of too many options, 2008-06-18
Schwartz has a compelling argument: the more options we have for each choice, the higher our expectation and the longer the decision process. For a number of people (especially those that like to 'maximize' every decision) this can be a very frustrating and potentially debilitating. He reports on studies that show how people are actually better off (more satisfied with outcomes) when given fewer choices. Clearly, this concept has been understood for a while, especially in marketing circles where the goal has been to 'take advantage' of customer behavior. However, Schwartz takes the perspective of the individual or consumer and shows how we can be manipulated and perhaps 'left hanging' when the array of choice is bewildering. This book has a very practical approach to the issue, ending with suggestions on how to address the challenges presented with having too much choice.
I bought a copy for myself, then ended up buying two more copies because I kept loaning it out to others who reported that a third party ended up taking it, instead of giving it back.
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