Freedom. A core tenet of United States culture. What embodies freedom more than individual choice?
Following this logic, more choices = more freedom. Therefore, having more choices is always virtuous, right?
The Paradox of Choice
Barry Schwartz counters this reasoning in his book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less. He argues that too much choice can have negative consequences. In particular it can have these effects:
- Decision Paralysis - We don’t feel confident we’ll make the best choice, so we don’t make any decision at all.
- Less Satisfaction - When we do make a decision, we ultimately feel less satisfied. In the back of your mind you’ll explore the imagined alternatives. This can lead to FOMO and regret that our decision really wasn’t the best one.
- Escalation of Expectations - If you only have a couple options you’ll be more accepting of their limitations. However, if you have lots of options, you’ll have higher expectations.
My name is John Booze and I’m a Chronic Maximizer
Furthermore, this affects people identified as “maximizers” even more-so. From the research paper Maximizing Versus Satisficing: Happiness Is a Matter of Choice:
Seven samples revealed negative correlations between maximization and happiness, optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, and positive correlations between maximization and depression, perfectionism, and regret.
This made me reflect. So many aspects of “maximizers” resonated. That’s when I realized I’m a Chronic Maximizer. When presented with a decision, I’ve always wanted to make the best choice and I want to support that decision with research, evidence, and data. That was the appeal of math. When you solve an equation there is only one correct answer. Ironically, I was convinced by Schwartz’s argument by approaching it from a mathematical perspective.
Imagine you are at the grocery store shopping for pasta. You want to purchase the best pasta. If there is only one available option, the decision is clear. There are no alternatives, so the only choice is the best one. If there are two options, you compare one to the other and simply determine which one is the best. If there are three options (A,B,C), you need to make three comparisons:
- A to B
- B to C
- C to A
If there are four options (A,B,C,D), you need to make six comparisons:
- A to B
- A to C
- A to D
- B to C
- B to D
- C to D
Further extrapolating:
- 5 options means 10 comparisons
- 6 options means 15 comparisons
- 7 options means 21 comparisons
Complete Graph
From a mathematical perspective, one can draw an undirected graph where the nodes are the options. Comparing all options to one another is connecting an edge between every node. You end up with what is known as a Complete graph. The formula for the number of edges in a complete graph is n(n - 1)/2 which has a Big O growth rate of n squared.
Conclusion
As the number of options increase, it gets more and more expensive to comprehensively compare them all to find the definitive best option.
So what can we do as Chronic Maximizers? Do we just accept the fate of our unhappiness? I’ll explore that topic in a future post.