Too much choice is fatal!

Have you ever found yourself hesitating just as you’re about to make a decision? You’ve decided to change your phone provider or try a wine that is radically different to your usual tipple, but end up backing out at the last minute. Faced with an array of options you decide to stick with your existing phone provider and after wearing yourself out thinking about it, you decide to stay with your usual Pinot Gris from the Moselle. Making the right choices is not easy. So what should you do?

We’ve all been there, where we freeze at the point of making a decision. This phenomenon has been well known for decades now, so there’s no need for you to worry about it. On the other hand, it’s interesting to try and understand why this happens if we want to avoid it. Freezing up on the day of an important personal or professional decision could have damaging consequences. So let’s try and understand what’s happening here.

A limited capacity for decisions

Free choice is a key element in an individual’s independence and personal fulfilment. It implies having the choice of several options. In our society, this is the case in more or less all areas. And the digital era has considerably increased our opportunities for choice in very many areas of life: from the cereals we eat for breakfast to our financial investments, not forgetting the clothes we buy or the mobile phone provider we choose. Practically everything is possible and available in an innumerable range of options.

More choice does not necessarily mean a better ability to choose. Our brain’s decision-making capacity is limited, even if the range of choices is not.

But does this necessarily make us more independent and fulfilled? More choice does not necessarily mean a better ability to choose. Our brain’s decision-making capacity is limited, even if the range of choices is not.

How many of us really analyse and assess the myriad options necessary to carefully weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of each of the options on offer? Nobody! More often than not, we are swayed by impressions and prejudices. This means that we make biased, hasty and imperfect decisions.

Excess choice is one of the reasons why we sometimes make bad choices. Recognised as a cognitive impairment, it occurs during the decision-making process when we cannot easily take a decision because we are confronted with too much choice. This is also more likely to occur when making a decision in a field where we don’t have the relevant expertise.

That may explain why you always buy the same wine – you’re not a wine expert after all – or fail to choose the right financial investment for you and leave your money dormant in a savings account.

Not only is our ability to make the right decision reduced by too much choice, the same is true of our satisfaction with our final decision. This can ultimately result in a weariness when it comes to making decisions and we will stick with the default option without properly considering the choices available, or even avoid making a decision completely.

Just as our body has limited resources for physical activity, our willpower also has its limits when it comes to decision-making.

Too much choice is fatal!

Why is it that too much choice does not work in our favour? Quite simply, because it wears us out. In exactly the same way as our body has limited resources for physical activity, our willpower also has its limits when it comes to decision-making.

By analysing more than 600 cases, researchers Michael R. Cunningham and Roy F. Baumeister confirmed that decision-making exhausts our willpower by a process referred to as “ego depletion”. Just as physical exercise tires the muscles in your body, every decision taxes your brain and exhausts your willpower until it is unable to work correctly to take decisions.

Even the smallest decisions can be an issue for our brains. Sheena S. Iyengar and Mark R. Lepper of Columbia University carried out a simple and instructive experiment on this point. They asked supermarket clients to test 24 different types of jam. They repeated the experiment the following day limiting the choice to six jams.

The result was that whilst more people stopped to taste the samples when 24 jams were offered, scarcely 3% of them bought one of the jams sampled. In contrast, on the second day when six flavours were offered, 30% of those tasting the jam made a purchase. Unbelievable!

Choice architecture as an aid to decision-making…

Our difficulty in making decisions is an ongoing phenomenon that has been known about for a long time. Both marketing specialists and public policymakers try and use it to help us to make the “right” decisions. How? By directing choice. This is how the concept of choice architecture was born.

A “good” choice architecture takes account of how our brain works and the fact that we have limited cognitive resources. It relies on the fact that we prefer simplicity to complexity, that we like to avoid having to rack our brains and that we filter out anything we don’t need to bear in mind.

Choice architecture gives us a nudge on decisions by changing one element in the environment.

Choice architecture gives us a nudge on decisions by changing one element in the environment. This change guides us towards one choice but doesn’t stop us from making a different one. We still have perfect freedom of choice, but the choice looks easier to us because one option or specific attribute is highlighted to the detriment of others. For example, this is the case with default options included in a package deal, which we are perfectly free to opt out of, providing we can be bothered to refuse them.

Choice architecture works because our behaviour and decisions are keenly influenced by the way we structure our environment. Even minor and apparently insignificant changes can have a major impact. Anyone who is aware of and can control the things that make us react can structure our environment to nudge us into deciding one way or another. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself.

In principle, the aim of choice architecture is to make our life easier and to guide us, without restricting our cognitive ability to choose. Richard Thaler was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for the book co-written with Cass Sunstein in 2008 on nudge theory. The choice architecture theory is used to help resolve public service issues.

For example, by counting on the fact that we tend to accept default options rather than taking an active decision to the contrary, the nudge was used to raise organ donations in countries that decided to register their citizens on the donor list by default. Citizens can remove themselves if they wish, but many don’t, and a much higher number of donors is achieved than would have otherwise been the case.

… or for the purposes of manipulation

Choice architecture can sometimes be used to nudge us towards options that are not necessarily in our interest as citizens or consumers. The intention may not necessarily be a bad one, but directing choices has consequences.

This is what was noted in the nineties in the US when New Jersey and Pennsylvania introduced legislative reforms offering citizens two options for their car insurance. Citizens had the choice between more expensive insurance that included the right to sue in the event of an accident and less expensive car insurance with limited rights to sue.

In Pennsylvania, the more expensive option was the default, whereas in New Jersey, the less expensive option was the default. Whichever the default option, most citizens did not bother to actively choose the other option.

The proposed option is not necessarily the best one for us.

This example highlights the fact that whilst decision-making aids are useful, it is important to question the purpose of the choice architecture presented to us. The proposed option is not necessarily the best one for us. This is particularly true when it comes to marketing issues where the aim of the proposed option serves the sales requirements and objectives of a brand rather than our interests. It is therefore key that we learn how to make the right decisions and are not fooled by choice architecture.

This article is a part of the folder Special feature: making the right financial decisions