Choice Overload: When More Options Lead to Fewer Choices

A version of this text was written for the book "Better Decisions" but was never included. It was written by the undersigned and Reidunn Lognvik Reinholdt.

Two good job offers

A few years ago, I received two exciting job offers. One was a management position at a hospital. The other was an exciting new position in the TV industry. Naturally, I was happy. We humans love choices. Or do we? A couple of days later, the initial joy had subsided. I spent my days churning over what to choose, but only became more confused the more I thought. I slept worse and struggled with a headache that only got worse.

The Paradox of Choice

Psychologist Barry Schwartz calls this the paradox of choice. We have the freedom to customize our lives. This is tempting in theory, but in practice it makes many of our choices harder.

When does choosing become difficult?

In a large summary of 99 studies (Chernev et al. 2015), researchers concluded that some factors increase the likelihood of choice overload. Many options create trouble when:

• We don't have clear preferences
• We're short on time and need to make quick decisions
• The alternatives are complex
• The choice matters and consequences of a bad choice are large
• It's difficult to compare what we're choosing between

If you click on Netflix to find a movie and have just enough time to watch one, but don't have a clear idea whether you want a romantic comedy, a documentary, or an action film, you're in trouble. This is probably the main reason why an American survey shows that 28 percent of those who go on streaming services without a clear idea of what to watch end up not watching anything at all.

More choices, fewer decisions

Many important decisions in our lives—both private and at work—meet several of the overload criteria above. The stress of facing all the options can lead us to make less favorable choices. In one study, researchers found that fewer chose to save in pension funds if they were offered many alternative fund solutions.

Make faster and fewer choices

Sheena Iyengar, one of the leading researchers on choice overload, believes we make around 70 conscious choices each day. If you hunt for the optimal choice 70 times a day, you'll probably spend disproportionate time and effort on decisions that matter little in the long run.

My clear advice: Just decide something. Make choices faster and live with doing so on thinner ground than you're comfortable with.

Mark Zuckerberg wears the same outfit every day—a gray t-shirt and jeans—supposedly to not spend energy choosing clothes in the morning. Steve Jobs and Obama did the same.

So which decisions are worth spending more time on? These are recognized by:

1. They have major consequences.
2. They're made often. Small choices made frequently can have as much significance as one big decision.
3. They contain significant uncertainty.

PS: These are the choices my book "Better Decisions" is about.