Decisions Decisions
January 11, 2006
Carlos Gershenson writes:
Many people complain that nowadays there is too much choice. 20 ways of having your coffee, 50 types of ketchup, ten political parties in countries of less than 10 million [...] Too much choice overloads our cognitive abilities. Fifty years ago, George Miller published a paper showing that people tended to be able to keep in their minds only seven plus-minus two things at a time. In other words, after more or less seven types of fries, we lose track of what is going on…
Another salient example of overwhelming choice is the simple over-abundance of possible life paths. For many young people growing up in this globalized age — where economic niches are more plentiful than ever, and where transportation could probably get you to 99% of the towns on Earth in less than a week — the question is a daunting one: where to place yourself in this wide world? Compare this plenitude of options with those of an average human a few centuries ago. Most likely, you would inherit the occupation of your parents. Most likely, you would never travel further than the next town. For us post-moderns, the adjacent possible has expanded a million-fold and we are confronted with a dizzying array of decisions which, in sequence, will create our lives.
Is there something wrong with having a lot of possible niches? At first glance, it seems like a low-stress, non-competitive environment of abundance. Is this how the First World appears to the Third World? At second glance, it taxes our cognitive resources to be forced to consider so many options all the time in our quest to maximize utility. A related question is: in a directed search where we uncover the options one-by-one, at what point should we give up and go with the best-so-far?
When am I better off just picking my ketchup at random? When should I stop comparison shopping and just buy? When should I stop searching for the “perfect woman” and just settle down? It’s our old friend, the law of Diminishing Returns. At some point, the cost of evaluating more options will outweigh the possible slight increase in utility.
Take it from me, someone apt to be indecisive: better to eat than starve to death looking for the best deal. Better to be happy with a satisfactory decision than to stress out trying to make an optimal one.
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