The tyranny of choice: making decisions becomes hard work | Hacker News Reader

The tyranny of choice: making decisions becomes hard work

economist.com

38 points001sky20 comments

There's a piece on Obama in Vanity Fair this month where he mentions that he alternates between a blue and a grey suit each day, because he doesn't want to spend mental energy on unnecessary decision-making.

On a more trivial note, I have abandoned my computer for making electronic music. I was spending more mental effort on optimizing my production environment than I was on actually using it.

Related, from just over a week ago: "Why I wear the same shirt every day" - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4490538

Decisions take effort and focus. At some point, the payoff simply isn't worthwhile.

I wear the same thing every day for this exact reason

> There's a piece on Obama in Vanity Fair this month where he mentions that he alternates between a blue and a grey suit each day, because he doesn't want to spend mental energy on unnecessary decision-making.

like he doesn't have people who work on his image and decide it for him.

No? Probably not?

I'm sure he has the equivalent a valet and I'm sure he has style consultants on tap to make sure that the two outfits he's narrowed his wardrobe down to won't look terrible on camera. But I imagine he gets to pick his own suits.

Anyways, the point is, he doesn't think about his wardrobe. He obviously has the opportunity to. He doesn't.

Don't forget: relevant context

Columnist Bonnie Erbe has argued that [Mrs] Obama's own publicists seem to be feeding the emphasis on style over substance.[110] Erbe has stated on several occasions that she is miscasting herself by overemphasizing style.[46][111] In July 2007, Vanity Fair listed her among "10 of the World's Best Dressed People." In July 2008, she made a repeat appearance on the Vanity Fair international best dressed list.[86] She also appeared on the 2008 People list of best-dressed women and was praised by the magazine for her "classic and confident" look.[87][88] Her fashion choices were part of the 2009 Fashion week,[91] but Obama's influence in the field did not have the impact on the paucity of African-American models who participate, that some thought it might.[92][93] She often wears clothes by designers Calvin Klein, Isabel Toledo, Narciso Rodriguez, Donna Ricco and Maria Pinto,[98] and has become a fashion trendsetter,[99][100][101] She appeared on the cover and in a photo spread in the March 2009 issue of Vogue.[103][104] Every First Lady since Lou Hoover (except Bess Truman) has been in Vogue,[103] but only Hillary Clinton had previously appeared on the cover.[105 In August 2011 she became the first woman to appear on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens magazine, as well as the first person to appear on the cover in 48 years. [106]

This is about Mr Obama, not Mrs Obama.

One could argue that tyranny of choice is caused by inconsistency, rather than the choice itself.

For example, if you have five things to choose from, it's probably not too hard. Let's say you instead have the choice of 5 binary attributes, with any choice of attributes being available. Your five choices have now selected one of 32 products.

Now imagine you have to choose 5 binary attributes, but certain combinations of those attributes are not available. On paper, your choice could be said to be easier, since the product range is smaller, but the inconsistency forces you to have to consider every one of the 25 combinations (for example), and your brain explodes.

That's basically what happens every time I have to replace a laptop or a piece of hardware.

This is why I shop for groceries at Aldi instead of more popular brand name supermarkets. They have only the store brand of all products. I find that in addition to saving 50-60% on my food bill, the trip to store is super fast, stress free, and I have all of the same food I would have otherwise gotten. The only thing I go to a regular supermarket for is deli/seafood/meats which are not branded.

You could equally just go to Whole Foods every day and spend 200% on Organic-Local-Non-GMO-Grassfed-Free-Range products.

Not equally, I could only go half as much.

This reminds me so much of this Calvin and Hobbes comic:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2NHLFdK16uU/T3mU5fc6x0I/AAAAAAAAA8...

Also similar contents to this book I think:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More...

And also for fans of: Tl;dr =D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Cent_II_Diptychon

The obligatory TED Talk by Barry Schwartz - http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_ch...

<shameless self promotion> I gave a talk about "Designing Interactions that Help Customers in Decision Making" last year at EuroIA: http://www.hyperlabs.net/ergonomia/presentazioni/euroia11/

Document fails on Android :(

I assume all commercial applications of this work would "help" consumers spend more, and this add another layer of cruft to decode when shopping.

I don't think it's nearly as bad as this article makes it out to be. There still are defaults and you can still pick those.

What if you buy something and you don't like it? You can just never buy it again and choose something else instead.

> You can just never buy it again and choose something else instead.

... assuming you have the money to do so. How would your advice apply to an individual interested in purchasing an automobile?

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