The Art of Choosing

Sheena Iyengar (2010).?The art of choosing.?Twelve / Hachette Book Group: New York.

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X?life has a way of poking holes in your plans, or in the plans others make for you

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XIII?just the process of exploring these questions can help you make more informed decisions … Choice, ranging from the trivial to the life-altering, in both its presence and its absence, is an inextricable part of our life stories

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2?[Steve] Callahan … book Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea

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2-3?Joe Simpson … Simon Yates … Touching the Void

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3?survival was a matter of choice … the choice was an imperative rather than an opportunity; you might squander the latter, but it’s almost impossible to resist the former

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4 ?We measure our lives using different markers: years, major events, achievements.?We can also measure them by the choices we make … choice is an enormously powerful force

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6-7?When we speak of choice, what we mean is the ability to exercise control over ourselves and our environment.?In order to choose, we must first perceive that control is possible

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7-8?the main brain system engaged when making choices: the corticostriatal network.?Its first major component, the striatum, is buried deep in the middle of the brain and is relatively consistent in size and function across the animal kingdom, from reptiles to birds to mammals.?It is part of a set of structures known as the basal ganglia

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8?the prefrontal cortex acts as the brain’s command center, receiving messages from the striatum and other parts of the body and using those messages to determine and execute the best overall course of action … It also enables us to exercise impulse control … our prefrontal cortex continues to develop well past adolescence

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9?The ability to choose well is arguably the most powerful tool for controlling our environment.?After all, it is humans who have dominated the planet

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9?We are born with the tools to exercise choice, but just as significantly, we’re born with the desire to do so.?Neurons in the striatum, for example, respond more to rewards that people or animals actively choose than to identical rewards that are passively received

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9?Even in situations where there is no advantage to having more choice … choice is still instinctively preferred

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10?So what happens when we enjoy the benefits that choice is meant to confer but our need for choice itself is not met?

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11?zoo life is utterly incompatible with an animal’s most deeply ingrained survival instincts

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12?exercising control feels good … being unable to do so is naturally unpleasant and stressful

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13?Wild African elephants … have an average life span of 56 years as compared to 17 years for zoo-born elephants

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14?The degree to which we are able to strike a balance of control in our lives has a significant bearing on our health

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15?The less control people had over their work, the higher their blood pressure during work hours … People with little control over their work also experienced more back pain, missed more days of work due to illness in general, and had higher rates of mental illness … continuous low-grade stressors can actually deteriorate health to a greater extent than infrequent calamities like getting fired or going through a divorce … What affected people’s health most in these studies wasn’t the actual level of control that people had in their jobs, but the amount of control they perceived themselves as having

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16?We have the ability to create choice by altering our interpretations of the world

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18?The study suggests that minor but frequent choice making can have a disproportionately large and positive impact on our perception of overall control

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20?Joan Didion begins her essay “The White Album” … “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

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21?a person can choose freedom even when he has no physical autonomy

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28?members of more fundamentalist faiths experienced greater hope, were more optimistic when faced with adversity, and were less likely to be depressed than their counterparts

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30?one particular cultural feature has proved especially useful for understanding how the ideas and practice of choice vary across the globe: the degree of individualism or collectivism

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33?Japanese saying makeru ga kachi (literally “to lose is to win”)

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40?Some of the earliest known examples of language, Sumerian cuneiform carved into clay tablets, are love poems

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42-43?in the words of George Bernard Shaw, marriage inspired by love brings two people together “under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions.?They are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continually until death do them part.”

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48?Anglo American children … The moment anyone else told them what to do, their performance and subsequent motivation dropped dramatically.?

????By comparison, the Asian American children performed best and were most motivated when they believed their mothers had chosen for them

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52?While the Anglo American employees at the first plant had welcomed the chance to express their opinions, the Asian employees at the second plant wondered why their manager wasn’t doing his job of managing … That plant was able to convert to a team-based system only after significantly more time and effort had been spent finding culturally acceptable ways for its employees to function autonomously

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55?In perhaps the most famous passage of the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita, the god Krishna tells the hero Arjuna, “You have control over your actions, never over the fruits of your actions.?You should never act for the sake of the reward, nor should you succumb to inaction.”

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57?studies have shown that Asians in general not only believe they are less able to influence other people, they also see fate as playing a greater role in their lives compared to Westerners

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59?people have different ideas, based on cultural background, about what constitutes “choice,” but also that they see more of whatever choice condition they prefer … When left to their own devices … people are likely to perceive choice at the level that is optimal for them

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63?Erich Fromm in his 1941 book Escape from Freedom … “Freedom from” and “freedom to” don’t always go together, but one must be free in both senses to obtain full benefit from choice

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65?It’s possible to get the best of both worlds to some extent, for example by levying taxes to create a social safety net – a relatively minor imposition on “freedom from” in exchange for significant benefits to many people’s “freedom to.”

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68?the income tax rate for the wealthiest individuals in the United States was 35 percent in 2009, 12 percentage points lower than the average in the European Union.?In 1998, the United States spent 11 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on subsidies and transfers like Social Security, Medicaid, and welfare benefits, compared to the 21 percent average in the European Union nations

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69-70?the Gini coefficient … assesses the equality of income distribution in a given country.?Out of the 133 countries for which the Gini coefficient is measured, Sweden has the most equitable distribution of wealth and resources among its inhabitants … The United States is ninety-fourth … American democracy … has also created a society rife with inequality

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70?Recent studies … success in the United States is based slightly less on effort and more on circumstances of one’s birth

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71?(the Census Bureau estimates that fewer than half of Americans will be of European ancestry by 2042)

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73?take that step into strange lands and strange languages

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75?Michelangelo claimed that his sculptures were already present in the stone, and all he had to do was carve away everything else.?Our understanding of identity is often similar

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75?Whereas the median age for first marriage in the United States held relatively steady at 21 for women and 23 for men until as recently as 1970, it has since risen sharply to 25 for women and 27 for men

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76?Times magazine … 2005 … “twixters” who seem trapped betwixt and between adolescence and adulthood … Europe … NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) … Japan … “parasite singles,” … Italy … bamboccioni (“grown-up babies”)?

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80?[Ralph Waldo] Emerson … America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence.”

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83?more than half of Americans have changed their faith at least once, according to a 2009 Pew poll.?The fastest-growing category consists of those with no religious affiliation at all

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86?1.?People are more alike than they think.

????2.?What people believe about themselves, or what they would like to believe, doesn’t vary much from person to person.

????3.?Each person is convinced that he or she is unique

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88?Ninety percent of us believe ourselves to be in the top 10 percent in terms of overall intelligence and ability

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90?we regularly fail to recognize that others’ thoughts and behaviors are just as complex and varied as our own

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97?cognitive dissonance … In order to function successfully, it’s necessary to resolve the dissonance

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101?To be ourselves while remaining adaptable, we must either justify a decision to change as being consistent with our identity, or we must acknowledge that our identity itself is malleable but no less authentic for it

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103?When around other people, we want to come off as entertaining but not overly attention-seeking, intelligent but not pretentious, and agreeable but not submissive

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105-106?Women can usually tell if a man is interested (but not the other way around)

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107-108?The opinions others have of us can serve as a useful reality check … we can obtain the same benefits through self-awareness … Once we know what others think about us, then we can choose how to respond

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108?We should be careful … not to give in to the temptation to influence others to see us as better than we actually are

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110?Flannery O’Connor reportedly said, “I write to discover what I know.”

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114-115?thinking with two different brains … Humans do, indeed, have two interconnected and yet distinct systems for processing information and arriving at answers or judgments.

????The first … the automatic system, operates quickly, effortlessly, and subconsciously …

????In contrast, the reflective system, driven not by raw sensation but by logic and reason

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115-116?Statistics show that infidelity is reported in nearly 30 to 40 percent of dating relationships and 40 to 60 percent of marriages; in one survey, 52 percent of college students indicated a moderate to high need for help in overcoming procrastination problems; and over 30 percent of workers have never saved money for retirement

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116?In the [Walter] Mischel [“marshmallow studies”] experiment, 30 percent of the [four-year-old] children exercised enough self-control to hold out for a full 15 minutes … Follow-up studies found … The self-controllers … seemed to be healthier, wealthier, and wiser

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118?temptation … intentionally deploying methods of distraction can work wonders

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119?heuristics

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120?decision-making biases … Nobel Prize-winning work of psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky

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120-125?four of the most common heuristics … and how they can become biases … “availability” … framing … “false-sightedness” … “confirmation biases.”

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125?traditional interviews are actually one of the least useful tools for predicting an employee’s future success

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126?[Philip] Tetlock … even though the experts made predictions for a living, the vast majority of them performed slightly worse than they would have by choosing at random.?And the ones who had greater confidence in their predictions were actually less accurate on average

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127?lies are notoriously difficult to detect

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129?informed intuition … If you want to improve, you must continuously observe and critically analyze your performance

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129-130?how should you improve your overall ability to choose??The key is to employ your reflective system to sort through your use – or misuse – of heuristics … Gather evidence against your own opinion

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133?A study by Daniel Kahneman and colleagues found that commuting is by far the most unpleasant part of the average person’s day, and spending even an extra 20 minutes in transit is one-fifth as harmful to your well-being as losing your job

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134?explaining romantic attraction is near impossible

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138?we aren’t much better at remembering how we felt in the past than we are at predicting how we will feel in the future

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138?Daniel Gilbert … book Stumbling on Happiness?

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141?as the Indian proverb says, “What does a monkey know of the taste of ginger?”

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147?Calvin Klein, for example, reportedly buys forecasts so he’ll know what not to do

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148?Which comes first, the customer or the designer?

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150?David Wolfe … about the fine line between predicting trends and influencing them.?“It is the most convoluted avenue imaginable in terms of fashion, about manipulating choice, then presenting it.?If I had to be honest: I am a manipulator.”

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152-153?our choices are based as much on the identities they express as on their possible outcomes

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153?the magic of bottled water is due mostly to smoke and mirrors

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154?people do take puffery seriously … Bottled water customers certainly must have bought into the puffery; they pay 1,000 times more … than they do for tap water … a quarter of bottled water brands are tap water … federal quality standards for tap water are more stringent and more strongly enforced than the standards for bottled water

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155?mega-corporations decide exactly how much variety their brands will offer … they aim to maximize differences in image, thereby generating the illusion of variety and attracting the greatest diversity of consumers at the least cost to themselves

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157?are we betraying ourselves by pretending that we make meaningful choices as consumers?

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159?The term “robot,” comes from the Czech robota, meaning “compulsory labor,”

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167?Something that activates … automatic associations is known as a “prime,” and its effect on our mental states and subsequent choices is known as “priming.”

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168?Priming can have pervasive effects on our moods, perceptions, and choices

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169?The effectiveness of priming lies in its subtlety, not its strength, so it affects our choices on the margins rather than causing us to act against our strongly held values … our core values and attitudes are relatively safe from subconscious influences … But we might unwittingly allow the physical voting environment to affect the choice, as demonstrated by a study by Jonah Berger, Marc Meredith, and S. Christian Wheeler

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171?A classic study of the 1974 Canadian national elections found that the most attractive candidates received over twice as many votes as the least attractive ones … elected officials are several inches taller and less likely to be bald than the population as a whole … numerous studies have also shown that height and salary positively correlated

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175?We tend to have a knee-jerk negative response to anything that seems to want or have control over us … anxiety … too much of it is counterproductive

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176?By focusing on things that really matter, we avoid running ourselves ragged over decisions that are simply not important in the long run

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179?an abundance of choice doesn’t always benefit us

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189?“the Long Tail” … Chris Anderson

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190?studies … have found fairly consistently that when people are given a moderate number of options (4 to 6) rather than a large number (20 to 30), they are more likely to make a choice, are more confident in their decisions, and are happier with what they choose

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202?there are consequences to keeping our options open

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202?after a certain point, the amount of time and energy directed toward choosing counteracts the benefits of the choice

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205?We’re aware of the positive effects of choice but not the negative ones

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213?Inventors and artists and musicians have long known the value of putting constraints on choice

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224?Only 10 percent of doctors surveyed in 1961 reported that they would tell a patient he had been diagnosed with cancer, but by 1971 – in a complete reversal of numbers – over 90 percent were prepared to tell the patient

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236?Maybe we all need to focus less on perfection and more on the joys of simply spending time with the people we love

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242?“reactance”

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243?choice has worth rather than value

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244?As a psychological phenomenon, reactance doesn’t depend on the facts of a situation but on our perception of it.?If we believe choice has been taken away, it may not matter that we’re wrong

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247?cognitive dissonance

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248?“Sin taxes,” … Studies have found that a 10 percent increase in alcohol tax results in an average 3 to 4 percent drop in consumption … cigarettes … a 10 percent increase could produce a consumption drop of up to 8 percent … Gary Becker and his colleagues

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249?A recent study found that people at high risk for smoking were happy when the cigarette tax was raised!?

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249?Taxes may be less restrictive than outright bans, but they can still induce reactance if raised very high

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251?It was well known even in ancient Greece that we act against our better judgment with disturbing regularity, a condition the Greeks called akrasia (literally, “lacking command” over oneself)

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254?there are other ways in which many of us regularly and willingly give up choice … a religious code of conduct … They offer their choices in exchange for a sense of belonging and moral rectitude; they make a deal with their community and their god.?Indeed, faith of any sort, religious or not, depends at least in part on trusting others to make choices for us

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258?the relationship between prediction and choice

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260?To choose means to turn ourselves to the future

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261?choice has power precisely because there is uncertainty

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261?choice … chance … destiny … I believe that choice … is ultimately the most powerful determinant of where we go and how we get there

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263-264?In spite of having the same education and abilities as her husband, she knew she could not make the same choices as he did and expect the same results.?In certain domains, her choices would always be more complicated and more fraught

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266?In his essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” Albert Camus writes, “Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”

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268?choosing helps us create our lives … we must embrace uncertainty and contradiction