Choice
July 23rd, 2008
Today, I’ll write about something I’ve been very much interested in lately. Choice.
Choice sells
We’re human. We love to feel like we’re in control. Having some choice, however irrelevant, gives us that feeling.
For example, take teleshopping - when they sell music, they always give you two choices - CDs or casettes. (recently, that choice has been replaced by CDs vs DVDs). Notice something? There’s still two choices. Whatever you think of that, teleshopping people are experts at marketing - they know why they do that.
Do you know the “I’m feeling lucky” button on google? Do you ever use it?
Apparently, less than 1 in 1000 searches use it. You might think that having a useless extra button would be bad, cluttering the interface. Surely google is aware of that?
Yeah. Google has done usability testing - and apparently users felt uneasy with the button removed. My theory is, it’s because of the illusion of choice. Having two search buttons makes you feel like you’re choosing, even though you’re really not.
One thing is really interesting though. Having too much choice is often even worse than having no choice at all. It somehow overloads your circuits - and leads to a deer-in-headlights reaction.
Too much choice
Researchers have done a study about choice. They took two groups of users. One of them had to choose from 5 things (I can’t remember what, I think it might have been yoghurts in supermarkets). The other group had to choose from something like 80. Later on they also had to rate their subjective satisfaction with their choice on a scale from 1 to 10.
The researchers found that having more choice leads to better choices… but less subjective satisfaction. Because you believe you could have chosen better.
If I had to pick between making a better choice, and being happier with the choice I make, I would choose happiness.
But I don’t think you need to have this dichotomy. The experiment the researchers did was a bit artificial, because the subjects only picked once, whereas in real life we make the same choices again and again. (Of course, if you apply this to buying a house, then it might be realistic.) In real life, you’ll be choosing yoghurt at the supermarket hundreds of times. Ideally you’ll spend some time the first two or three times, and after that just pick automatically (maybe revising your choice every couple of months). Then you can just be happy with your choice and stop worrying.
It’s kinda like The 70% Solution. You won’t know if you chose the best, but you will know you chose reasonably well, and can now focus on other, more important things.
Here’s another example where too much choice can suck:
A watch-making company hired a marketing expert to help them with magazine ads. The marketing expert created an ad featuring a single watch. The director didn’t like it and insisted that the expert creates an ad featuring nine of their watches.
The marketing expert suggested they try both of the ads and compare the results. They ran each of the ads for a week. The single-watch ad outsold the nine-watch one by six to one.
Too bad I wasn’t there. I would like to see how well a two-watch ad would work 
(somehow I think the single-watch ad would still fare better. After all, marketing experts know their stuff.)
I’ve also heard horror stories from customers of sandwich shops. Apparently, some shops have taken consumer choice to a ridiculous level - asking the customers over a dozen questions before just giving them the damn sandwich!
I could really feel the customer was overwhelmed. Basically he was saying - “hey, give me two or three basic questions, and be done with it”. I actually have a friend who does that. When he goes to such sandwich shop, he simply says “Make it the way you like it yourself.” And if the salesman asks any questions, my friend just answers “Do whatever you think is good.”
Denying choice
There’s something strangely comforting about having only a single choice. On that level, having a single terrible choice, or a single great choice are the same. In either case, you’re getting the best you possibly could without doing anything. (is this the ultimate in “less choice means worse results but higher satisfaction”?)
So some people use excuses like “God meant this to happen.” or “I was born this way.” or “I just don’t have it in me.” in order to avoid having to make a choice. They basically lie to themselves and get themselves stuck in a bad situation (dead-end job, or bad marriage, or an unhappy life) only because it provides them with the comfort of not having to make a choice.
The great philosopher Sartre (At least my teacher claimed he was great. To me he sounded like he would be great… at writing bedtime stories.) talked a lot about choice and freedom. He buried his point in writing more complicated than minotaur’s maze, but his point was basically this: “You are always free to choose, and if you’re denying it, you’re a dick.”
Now you might be sometimes tempted to deny you have a choice. I’ve done it myself a bunch of times. It’s comforting. It’s easy.
But there’s good news. You can achieve the same level of comfort without denying you have a choice. There’s a big difference between saying “I can’t quit my job” and “I could quit my job, but I choose not to”. But you can feel equally comfortable with both. (you can actually feel more comfortable with the second one.)
As long as you acknowledge you have a choice, pick your action (or decide not to act), and then move on and forget about it, you’re doing good.
Ok, let’s lighten up this heavy topic a bit
False restriction of choice
Scott Adams, the artist who draws Dilbert, said he was once approached by a reporter, when he was preparing for a speech about his comic. The reporter asked: “Would you like to do an interview before or after your speech?”
Heh
If you’ve read my article ***Ask the right questions***, you’ll immediately see the problem. This questions occupies your mind with whether to do the interview before or after the speech… completely ignoring the bigger question of whether you actually want to do the interview. Those evil tricky reporters
But Scott had heard this trick before, so he just answered “No, thanks.” So much for the reporter’s evil plot. Pwned.
Our choice
Let’s say you want to buy a sandwich. Your local sandwich shop gives you a simple choice - white bread or dark bread. You don’t really care one way or the other. You just pick white bread.
Then a friend comes along and says that says white bread sucks and you’re wrong to choose it, and he gives you some compelling reasons. If you had had no choice before (i.e. the shop offered only white bread), you might well agree with your friend. But since you chose white bread, you will probably now defend your choice.
When we choose something, it somehow becomes our choice. Suddenly we feel compelled to defend it in front of others. I think it has something to do with our ego. And the more we defend it, the more we like it, because we backward rationalize. “I must love that product, since I defend it in front of others so much.”
This is why you’ll never make anyone choose differently by attacking their current choice. Once emotions get involved, no amount of reasoning will do you any good. I see this mistake a lot with Linux fans. They attack Windows all day long, making Windows users defend their choice of operating system.
if you’re not given any choice, on the other hand, you might well resent the product, because you feel you’re being forced. (We humans LOVE freedom. Or the illusion of it.) I believe this is a big reason for Linux enthusiasts loving Linux and hating Windows. They feel they’re forced to use Windows (e.g. at work). Then they choose to use Linux at home. They will go a long way to defend their views.
How you can use all this
Okay, I’ve dug into a lot of stuff in this article. Here’s a quick summary of how you can use all of it.
- Acknowledge you have a choice
- Make your choice, then forget about it. The biggest reason for unhappiness about choices is that people keep thinking “I should have chosen…”
- Don’t attack other people’s choice. You’ll only make them defend it harder
- If you try to convince others about something (for their own good, obviously), give them a simple two-option choice. And let me know how it goes
Long days and pleasant nights.
###
Thanks for all the responses to “What do YOU want from my blog?”
I found out I’m basically doing fine. I’m just going to continue putting more of me in future posts. It might be personal stories (like in The Greatest Life Lesson I Learned From Playing Poker), or weird opinions I have (like in Why Linux Doesn’t Spread), or just stuff I’m interested in (like this post).
On an unrelated note, I came across this article while browsing the internet: Why We Banned Legos. It’s a really cool discussion how one school saw what happens with some kids get to have lots of property (lego pieces), and get power over others.
It was also fun to read people’s responses at some social networking website (can’t remember which). Basically a lot of people got offended by the article because they felt like their beliefs in capitalism were attacked, and they were reading some communist propaganda. Hey, I live in a rich capitalist country, and I liked the article! It made me think a lot. Read it, you’ll like it.
And one more thing. Since I wrote the article on Lucid Dreaming, I’ve head several lucid dreams again. I’ve thought about lucid dreams a lot while I was writing the article, and apparently it brought them back :). I had a great one just yesterday. If you’ve seen the TV show Heroes, there’s this guy who has telekinesis, and can move stuff with his mind. That’s what I did in the dream. I just lifted stuff (like cars) off the ground with a hand gesture and threw them around. Fun 
July 23rd, 2008 at 16:05
There is a google techtalk video which I found very interesting about choice. It made me seriously think about using an “agent” (a good friend you can trust, for example) to help me with bigger purchaces, like a car.
“The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vMV4PIEIKY4
July 24th, 2008 at 13:41
“False restriction of choice” - I used to use that strategy loads when I was teaching, and it worked! The assumption was that the work would be done (but there was a choice in the method or the order of tasks).
July 24th, 2008 at 17:41
Great article man…
Honestly, I haven’t thought about choice having this much influence. It always happens, “If only I had chosen… ”
My case, I use Windows at work ( and at home !) and still defend that Linux is better
_ATOzTOA
http://atoztoa.blogspot.com
July 25th, 2008 at 11:49
Hi
I discovered your blog last week, and since then I’ve read through your entire archive. And you know what, all of them are really interesting! Thanks for doing this.
The one thing that really caught my eye was the “Learning Mastery”. I’ve always considered the art of learning to be the ultimate skills. It’s nice to see someone thinking among similar lines. One other trick I’ve been using a lot, that wasn’t mentioned, is to write down questions I’d like to have answered from a more experienced person, and then answering them myself, as if I was that person. It’s about making you conscious about your own knowledge.
Choice and freedom is another interesting topic. I hate being forced into things. I may brutally turn down my mom’s very generous offer to clean the house just to do it three hours later (the alternative to do it later was never offered). Cleaning the house isn’t that bad - if I myself have chosen to do it.
Maybe one key to happiness is to see the possible choices in different situations. For example, instead of sulking cause my boss told me to do this or that tomorrow I may rejoice in the fact that I’ve got plenty of choice when to do it, tomorrow. Shall I do it at 9am? 10am? 11am? There’s plenty of possibilities!
Maybe your school restaurant offers only one dish, but at least you may chose where to sit! Actually, a lot of school restaurants in my area have expanded to two or three dishes during the last decade. Most people never ate the vegan alternative, but people could still often be heard
expressing their content with the expanded menu. Schools really use such underhanded tricks these days.
I’m not going tell you that I’ll be back with your next update, it would later make me feel like I have no choice in the matter. Sometimes your own past promises are the worst taskmasters.
See ye!