Quotes About Choice

the fact that some choice is good doesn't necessarily mean that more choice is better.

The alternative to maximizing is to be a satisficer. To satisfice is to settle for something that is good enough and not worry about the possibility that there might be something better. A satisficer has criteria and standards. She searches until she finds an item that meets those standards, and at that point, she stops.

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.

have seen that two of the factors affecting regret are Personal responsibility for the result How easily an individual can imagine a counterfactual, better alternative

On the other hand, the more we think about opportunity costs, the less satisfaction we'll derive from whatever we choose. So we should make an effort to limit how much we think about the attractive features of options we reject.

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.

There are some strategies you can use to help you avoid the disappointment that comes from thinking about opportunity costs: Unless you're truly dissatisfied, stick with what you always buy. Don't be tempted by "new and improved." Don't "scratch" unless there's an "itch." And don't worry that if you do this, you'll miss out on all the new things the world has to offer.

Choosers have the time to modify their goals; pickers do not. Choosers have the time to avoid following the herd; pickers do not. Good decisions take time and attention, and the only way we can find the needed time and attention is by choosing our spots.

Those who value freedom of choice and movement will tend to stay away from entangling relationships;

If people err systematically and substantially in making those predictions, it's likely that they will make some bad decisions—decisions that produce regret, even when events turn out well.

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.

Whereas maximizers might do better objectively than satisficers, they tend to do worse subjectively.

Having the opportunity to choose is no blessing if we feel we do not have the wherewithal to choose wisely.

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

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.

At present, the potential causal role that the availability of choice has in making people into maximizers is pure speculation. If the speculation is correct, we ought to find that in cultures in which choice is less ubiquitous and extensive than it is in the U.S., there should be fewer maximizers.

CHOICE HAS A CLEAR AND POWERFUL INSTRUMENTAL VALUE; IT enables people to get what they need and want in life.

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.

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.

In the modern university, each individual student is free to pursue almost any interest, without having to be harnessed to what his intellectual ancestors thought was worth knowing. But this freedom may come at a price. 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.

The circumstances of modern life seem to be conspiring to make experiences less satisfying than they could and perhaps should be, in part because of the richness against which we are comparing our own experiences. Again, as we'll see, an overload of choice contributes to this dissatisfaction.

Quite apart from the instrumental benefits of choice—that it enables people to get what they want—and the expressive benefits of choice—that it enables people to say who they are—choice enables people to be actively and effectively engaged in the world, with profound psychological benefits.

And this, indeed, is the standard line among social scientists who study choice. If we're rational, they tell us, added options can only make us better off as a society. Those of us who care will benefit, and those of us who don't care can always ignore the added options. This view seems logically compelling; but empirically, it isn't true.

people won't ignore alternatives if they don't realize that too many alternatives can create a problem.