Barry Schwartz' fantastic book on how people make choices in life. Barry was our keynote speaker at UI11.

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Product Description

In the spirit of Alvin Toffler's Future Shock, a social critique of our obsession with choice, and how it contributes to anxiety, dissatisfaction and regret. This paperback includes a new P.S. section with author interviews, insights, features, suggested readings, and more.

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.

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 counterintuitive 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 the important ones and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5001 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-01
• Released on: 2005-01-18
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Like Thoreau and the band Devo, psychology professor Schwartz provides ample evidence that we are faced with far too many choices on a daily basis, providing an illusion of a multitude of options when few honestly different ones actually exist. The conclusions Schwartz draws will be familiar to anyone who has flipped through 900 eerily similar channels of cable television only to find that nothing good is on. Whether choosing a health-care plan, choosing a college class or even buying a pair of jeans, Schwartz, drawing extensively on his own work in the social sciences, shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume in America that more options ("easy fit" or "relaxed fit"?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being. Part research summary, part introductory social sciences tutorial, part self-help guide, this book offers concrete steps on how to reduce stress in decision making. Some will find Schwartz's conclusions too obvious, and others may disagree with his points or find them too repetitive, but to the average lay reader, Schwartz's accessible style and helpful tone is likely to aid the quietly desperate.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Who woulda thunk it? Here we are, in the early years of the twenty-first century, being driven bonkers by the staggering array of consumer goods from which we must choose. Choosing something as (seemingly) simple as shampoo can force us to wade through dozens, even hundreds, of brands. We are, the author suggests, overwhelmed by choice, and that's not such a good thing. Schwartz tells us that constantly being asked to make choices, even about the simplest things, forces us to "invest time, energy, and no small amount of self-doubt, and dread." There comes a point, he contends, at which choice becomes debilitating rather than liberating. Did I make the right choice? Can I ever make the right choice? It would be easy to write off this book as merely an extended riff on that well-worn phrase "too much of a good thing," but that would be a mistake. Despite a tendency toward highfalutin language ("the counterfactuals we construct can be tilted upward"), Schwartz has plenty of insightful things to say here about the perils of everyday life. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Washington Post
"Wonderfully readable."

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Customer Reviews

Disappointing
The first third of this book consists of a boatload of statistics and observations about how many choices we have in modern life. A series of self-evident facts, signifying nothing.
The next third of the book suggests that choice is sometimes counterproductive and stressful. I have often observed myself that there are eight varieties of Cap'n Crunch in the store and the original is the only good one. Choice is not always good. Kinda knew that.
The Third Act, which is what I had hoped would be insightful, reads like a Wayne Dyer greeting card - chill out, breathe, choose what's important, connect with your source, hang in there baby!
In response to the stresses of life, one can only chill out so much before starting to ask harder questions about the nature of capitalism and whether our materialist culture is a disgrace to human history. These are the real issues that books like this are supposed to sort out for us through wise, critical, historical analysis. There is something wrong with *America* - not *me*. I just work here. Sure I can take a bath and eat whole wheat bread and drink more water, but as a citizen of the world, I wanna know why it's all screwed up and what I can do about it.

Great book
Barry Schwartz explores interesting paradox. If we as consumer have a lot of choices, it does not mean that we would be able to make a better decision or be happier. In fact it is often quite opposite. The book is based on strong scientific foundation: psychology of judgment and decision-making behavioral economics. He includes references to Nobel award winning work by Kahneman and Tversky, as well as few other researchers. At the same time The Paradox or Choice is not a dry academic-like book: is it full of amusing real-life examples. What influence our choice? What factors would lead us to make irrational choice? How to measure happiness and satisfaction? How to make trade-off? You will find answers on these and other questions.

Essentially Barry Schwartz uncovers from different points view what we already intuitively know: in order to be happy we don't need to buy more things or more expensive things. We just need to make choices, which will increase our satisfaction. What I took away after reading this book are a few simple ideas, that I can use in my every day life. For example, I will try to base my choices on detailed research rather than the memory of one vivid event. This is not as easy as it sounds as we do not always follow our own rules of decision-making. Barry Schwartz's book helps us to reinforce our intent to make more rational choices.

I highly recommend this book.

Lev Virine, author of Project Decisions: The Art and Science

Explains my life
As I write this review, I am pondering what I should do next: read, watch tv, do homework, look info up on google, or play euchre.

I'll probably read. What book? I have a stack of fifty that I will probably never get through. What is worse, it takes me more time to choose the book I would like to read than it does to read it!

This is what the Paradox of Choice is all about. We think our lives are great. We have more stuff, more options, more channels, and more choice than ever. Yet, people do not seem to be any happier than they were in the days of barbarism, i.e., before TV had 200 channels and the internet was a necessity.
If anything, we are more stressed, anxious, uncertain, and depressed than ever.

Hence the paradox.
Shwartz marshals hundreds of studies to explain this paradox. The main conclusion is that humans are usually maximizers. This means we try to get the absolute best deal we can (whether it be in the mating market or the supermarket). However, this attitude also leads to guilt and stress. You begin to think: Did I chose the right mate? The right book? The right car? The grass looks greener, and there is more of it than there ever has been before.

This book explained my everyday life in a way that few books have. I wish that it would have focused on existential issues in more detail, rather than catering to marketers and economists. Whatever. It is still an excellent, non-technical account of the paradox of choice.

For those who love the book, I would recommend reading more technical works by Kahneman and Tversky. Their work is essential for understanding the heuristics of human decision making.

Of course, there are a million other things you could do, so why would you choose to do that!