The Paradox of Choice

最好的决策是选择合适的而不是最优的1.Negative liberty is “freedom from”—freedom from constraint, freedom from being told what to do by others. Positive liberty is “freedom to”—the availability of opportunities to be the author of your life and to make it meaningful and significant.==========2.it is my contention that we do ourselves no favor when we equate liberty too directly with choice, as if we necessarily increase freedom by increasing the number of options available.（自由不等同于选择的增多）==========3.When experiencing dissatisfaction or hassle on a shopping trip, consumers are likely to blame it on something else—surly salespeople, traffic jams, high prices, items out of stock—anything but the overwhelming array of options.（我们常常购物不满意归咎于销售员，交通，昂贵的价格，物品缺货，却常常忘了最主要的原因是我们选择太多）==========4.Its core idea is that we have too many choices, too many decisions, too little time to do what is really important.（选择过多，而没有时间做真正重要的事情）==========5.（把自己真正想要的放在第一位，聚焦）Taking care of our own “wants” and focusing on what we “want” to do does not strike me as a solution to the problem of too much choice. It is precisely so that we can, each of us, focus on our own wants that all of these choices emerged in the first place.==========★★6.（好的决策有六个步骤：①想好你的目标；②评估每个目标的重要性；③排列部署你的每种选择；④评价每种选择是否接近你的总目标；⑤选好正确的选择；⑥付出行动，在实践中修改你的目标），1.Most good decisions will involve these steps: 1. Figure out your goal or goals. 2. Evaluate the importance of each goal. 3. Array the options. 4. Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals. 5. Pick the winning option.6. Later use the consequences of your choice to modify your goals, the importance you assign them, and the way you evaluate future possibilities.==========★7.（我们的选择易受身边朋友的影响，但其实每个人的情况是不一样的，只有我们接受不同的信息来源，才能避免陷入这样的熟人带来的陷阱）You may have just read that Kias are actually very safe and you are all set to buy one. You mention this to me, but I’ve just read a story about a Kia being crushed by an SUV in an accident. So I tell you about my vivid memory, and that convinces you to revise your opinion. We are all susceptible to making errors, but we’re not each susceptible to making the same errors, because our experiences are different. As long as we include social interactions in our information gathering, and as long as our sources of information are diverse, we can probably steer clear of the worst pitfalls.==========8.（在面对确定性和不确定性选择中，我们会选择确定性数额小的获得，而冒风险选择数额大的失去）It seems to be a fairly general principle that when making choices among alternatives that involve a certain amount of risk or uncertainty, we prefer a small, sure gain to a larger, uncertain one. Most of us, for example, will choose a sure $100 over a coin flip (a f ifty-fifty chance) that determines whether we win $200 or nothing. When the possibilities involve losses, however, we will risk a large loss to avoid a smaller one. For example, we will choose a coin flip that determines whether we lose $200 or nothing over a sure loss of $100.==========9.（不要考虑沉没成本，多往前看）Aversion to losses also leads people to be sensitive to what are called “sunk costs.” Imagine having a $50 ticket to a basketball game being played an hour’s drive away. Just before the game there’s a big snowstorm—do you still want to go? Economists would tell us that the way to assess a situation like this is to think about the future. The $50 is already spent; it’s “sunk” and can’t be recovered. What matters is whether you’ll feel better safe and warm at home, watching the game on TV, or slogging through the snow on treacherous roads to see the game in person. That’s all that should matter. But it isn’t all that matters. To stay home is to incur a loss of $50, and people hate losses, so they drag themselves out to the game. Economist Richard Thaler provides another example of sunk costs that I suspect many people can identify with. You buy a pair of shoes that turn out to be really uncomfortable. What will you do about them? Thaler suggests: The more expensive they were, the more often you’ll try to wear them. Eventually, you’ll stop wearing them, but you won’t get rid of them. And the more you paid for them, the longer they’ll sit in the back of your closet. At some point, after the shoes have been fully “depreciated” psychologically, you will finally throw them away.==========10.（最大化者需要花更多时间去研究各个项目然后去选择最好的，但选择多了，负担多了，时间浪费了，工作量也大了）Maximizers need to be assured that every purchase or decision was the best that could be made. Yet how can anyone truly know that any given option is absolutely the best possible? The only way to know is to check out all the alternatives. A maximizer can’t be certain that she has found the best sweater unless she’s looked at all the sweaters. She can’t know that she is getting the best price unless 78 | The Paradox of Choice she’s checked out all the prices. As a decision strategy, maximizing creates a daunting task, which becomes all the more daunting as the number of options increases. A maximizer is always concerned that there is something better out there and acts accordingly.（最大化者总认为有更好的）==========★11.1. Maximizers engage in more product comparisons than satisficers, both before and after they make purchasing decisions. 2. Maximizers take longer than satisficers to decide on a purchase. 3. Maximizers spend more time than satisficers comparing their purchasing decisions to the decisions of others. 4. Maximizers are more likely to experience regret after a purchase. 5. Maximizers are more likely to spend time thinking about hypothetical alternatives to the purchases they’ve made. 6. Maximizers generally feel less positive about their purchasing decisions.==========12.（最大化使人们不快乐，自我满足很重要）Nonetheless, I believe that being a maximizer does play a causal role in people’s unhappiness, and I believe that learning how to satisfice is an important step not only in coping with a world of choice but in simply enjoying life.==========★13. The satisficers do not have standards. Satisficers may have very high standards. It’s just that they allow themselves to be satisfied once experiences meet those standards.(自我满足者不是没有高的标准，只是他们随所遇到的情况调整自我）==========★14.Pay attention to what you’re giving up in the next-best alternative, but don’t waste energy feeling bad about having passed up an option further down the list that you wouldn’t have gotten to anyway.（认真考虑下次选择要放弃的东西，但不要忧虑已经选择好的以至于无法前进）==========★★15.（面对取舍人们总是表现的不开心和犹豫不决）the researchers concluded that being forced to confront trade-offs in making decisions makes people unhappy and indecisive. It isn’t hard to understand this pattern. Imagine yourself choosing the less safe of two cars to save $5,000, only to have a major car accident later on. Could you live with yourself if it turned out that one of your loved ones would have been spared serious injury if you’d been driving a safer car? Of course you’re reluctant to trade off safety for price. Of course safety has overriding importance. But this is a very special case. Now imagine trying to decide whether to buy a mountain bike or a digital camera. Each option represents a gain (positive features it has that the other doesn’t) and a loss (positive features it doesn’t have that the other does). We saw in Chapter 3 that people tend to display loss aversion. The loss of $100 is more painful than the gain of $100 is pleasurable. What that means is that when the mountain bike and the digital camera are compared, each will suffer from the comparison. If you choose the camera, you’ll gain the quality and convenience of digital photography but lose the exercise in lovely surroundings. Because losses have a greater impact than gains, the net result will be that the camera fairs less well when compared with the mountain bike than it would have if you were evaluating it on its own. Once again, this suggests that whenever we are forced to make decisions involving trade-offs, we will feel less good about the option we choose than we would have if the alternatives hadn’t been there.（面对取舍，我们会降低选择好的东西获得的满足和快乐感）==========16.（挑选餐厅的时候，我们习惯一条路走到头去选择最好的，但机会成本的累积，使快乐所剩无几）appeared to have discovered a great new dieting technique— satiation by simulation. You just imagine yourself eating dishes you love, and after you’ve imagined enough of them, you start to get full. When the time finally comes to sit down and eat, you don’t have much appetite. In fact what was happening was the buildup of opportunity costs. As I encountered one attractive alternative after another, each new alternative just reduced the potential pleasure I would feel after I made my choice. By the end of the hour, there was no pleasure left to be had. Clearly, the cumulative opportunity cost of adding options to one’s choice set can reduce satisfaction. It may even make a person miserable.==========17.★★（做决策的时候要先思考，权衡取舍和机会成本，不能先做决定然后去分析，那样事后给的理由当时看起来都是对的，后来却不定是对）What I am suggesting is there are pitfalls to deciding after analyzing. My concern, given the research on trade-offs and opportunity costs, is that as the number of options goes up, the need to provide justifications for decisions also increases. And though this struggle to find reasons will lead to decisions that seem right at the moment, it will not necessarily lead to decisions that feel right later on.==========★18. Indeed, I believe that one of the reasons that maximizers are less happy, less satisfied with their lives, and more depressed than satisficers is precisely because the taint of trade-offs and opportunity costs washes out much that should be satisfying about the decisions they make.==========★19.不管有没有承担的责任，坏的结果都会同样让人不愉快，但只有承担责任的人才会遗憾）Several studies have shown that bad results make people equally unhappy whether or not they are responsible for them. But bad results make people regretful only if they bear responsibility.==========★20.反事实思考倾向：消极情绪以及不愉快的事情容易引起我们的反事实思考，“要是我能早一点起床” ” 要是选择走另外一条路“等等，这类思考有几个特点，一是我们会去想那些人为可控的因素而忽略非人为因素，二是我们会往消极的方向想而不是往积极的方向想。 Counterfactual thoughts tend to be triggered by negative events, and events can be negative in absolute terms.==========★★★21.（新鲜感改变一个人的快乐标准，但我们做出选择时候，容易低估人类的习以为常心理，认为我们会一直保持激情与新鲜感，从而造成对某项决定的高估） Novelty can change someone’s hedonic standards so that what was once good enough, or even better than that, no longer is. And as we’ll see, adaptation can be especially disappointing when we’ve put much time and effort into selecting, from a myriad of possibilities, the items or experiences we end up adapting to. Human beings, Scitovsky said, want to experience pleasure. And when they consume, they do experience pleasure—as long as the things they consume are novel. But as people adapt—as the novelty wears off—pleasure comes to be replaced by comfort. Comfort is nice enough, but people want pleasure. And comfort isn’t pleasure.（新鲜感给人们快乐，但我们对一样东西的新鲜感有限，随时间推移，我们习惯了一样东西，而这东西只给我们的是舒适但不是快乐）==========★★★22.（我们做一个决定的时候，一定要考虑这决定给我们的满足感持续多久，多久被我们的适应力消化了，用一个月时间决定只有六个月的满足感很傻）If the decision provides substantial satisfaction for a long time after it is made, the costs of making it recede into insignificance. But if the decision provides satisfaction for only a short time, those costs loom large. Spending four months deciding what stereo to buy isn’t so bad if you really enjoy that stereo for fifteen years. But if you end up being excited by it for six months and then adapting, you may feel like a fool for having put in all that effort. It just wasn’t worth it. This means that when we are making decisions, we should think about how each of the options will feel not just tomorrow, but months or even years later.==========23.人们基于三种差异评估满意的标准：一个人已有的和想要有的之间的差异；一个人已有的和别人拥有的之间的差异；一个人已有和他以前有过最好的之间的差异。 people establish standards of satisfaction based on the assessment of three gaps: “the gap between what one has and wants, the gap between what one has and thinks others like oneself have, and the gap between what one has and the best one has had in the past.（第四条是他已经有的和他期待的）----感觉和第一条重复？To these three comparisons I have added a fourth: the gap between what one has and what one expects.==========24.If the experience was as good as expected, people may be satisfied, but they won’t be ecstatic. Real hedonic charge comes when an experience exceeds expectations. And hedonic distress comes when experience fails to live up to expectations.（当经历的和一个人的期待一样的时候，人只会感觉满足但不会狂喜，只有超过他的期待才会）==========★（为了减少一个人的习以为常的适应，我们应该减少我们满足感的体验的次数，比如夫妻可以减少性交的次数）25.One way of achieving this goal is by keeping wonderful experiences rare. No matter what you can afford, save great wine for special occasions. No matter what you can afford, make that perfectly cut, elegantly styled, silk blouse a special treat. This may seem like an exercise in self-denial, but I don’t think it is. On the contrary, it’s a way to make sure that you can continue to experience pleasure. What’s the point of great meals, great wines, and great blouses if they don’t make you feel great?==========★26.(和人比较的过程，乐观的人容易在分心中继续，而悲观的人容易陷入反思和自我苦恼中）The inference here is that distraction versus rumination is the critical distinction. Happy people have the ability to distract themselves and move on, whereas unhappy people get stuck ruminating and make themselves more and more miserable.==========★27.Optimists” explain successes with chronic, global, and personal causes and failures with transient, specific, and universal ones. “Pessimists” do the reverse.（成功者分析成功长期，全面，和个人的因素，失败者却是短期的，特殊的，普遍的）People who find chronic causes for failure expect failures to persist; those who find transient causes don’t. People who find global causes for failure expect failure to follow them into every area of life; those who find specific causes don’t. And people who find personal causes for failure suffer large losses in self-esteem; those who find universal causes don’t.==========★★（面对失败，社会和环境总是强迫我们自我责备，认为这一定是个人的原因，但其实自我责备会提高我们面对失败的压抑感，失去把任何事做好的信心）28.Nonetheless, I think it is fair to say that for most people, most of the time, excessive self-blame has bad psychological consequences. And as we’ll see, it is much easier to blame yourself for disappointing results in a world that provides unlimited choice than in a world in which options are limited.When we (inevitably) fail, the culture of individualism biases us toward causal explanations that focus on personal rather than universal factors. That is, the culture has established a kind of cially acceptable style of causal explanation, and it is one that encourages the individual to blame himself for failure. And this is just the kind of causal explanation that promotes depression when we are faced with failure.If the experience of disappointment is relentless, if virtually every choice Whose Fault Is It? Choice, Disappointment, and Depression you make fails to live up to expectations and aspirations, and if you consistently take personal responsibility for the disappointments, then the trivial looms larger and larger, and the conclusion that you can’t do anything right becomes devastating. ==========★★★29.To manage the problem of excessive choice, we must decide which choices in our lives really matter and focus our time and energy there, letting many other opportunities pass us by.But by restricting our options, we will be able to choose less and feel better.==========解决过多选择的方法：　1. 记录当下的感受，而不是仅仅依靠事后的记忆。 2.. 做一个满足者而不是尽取者,设立自己的条件与标准，只要找到符合物品，就停止搜索并作出决定。 3. 决定什么时候要做出决定，所需要的时间 4.考虑机会成本（考虑机会成本，①除非你真的很不满意，否则还是坚持你的选择；　　 ②不要接受“全新或改进”的诱惑　　 ③除非真的“痒痒”，否则不要去“挠“　　 ④不要担心错过新事物 1.Unless you’re truly dissatisfied, stick with what you always buy. 2. Don’t be tempted by “new and improved.” 3. Don’t “scratch” unless there’s an “itch.” 4. And don’t worry that if you do this, you’ll miss out on all the new things the world has to offer.==========5..降低习惯的效应 1 当你买一辆新车时，要充分意识到这种拥有新车的兴奋大吃一惊不会持续到两个月以上；　　 2 少花一点时间去寻求完美，不要让高昂的搜寻成本去抵消你从最终选择中得到的满足感；　　 3 经常提醒自己，事物实际上是非常美好，而不要过多去想它们已经没有原先那么好1. As you buy your new car, acknowledge that the thrill won’t be quite the same two months after you own it. 2. Spend less time looking for the perfect thing (maximizing), so that you won’t have huge search costs to be “amortized” against the satisfaction you derive from what you actually choose. 3. Remind yourself of how good things actually are instead of focusing on how they’re less good than they were at f irst.==========6..控制期望值 1. Reduce the number of options you consider. 2. Be a satisficer rather than a maximizer. 3. Allow for serendipity.==========7.减少社会比较8.学会自我限制==========

We would be better off if we embraced certain voluntary constrains on freedom of choices, instead of rebelling against them. We would be better off seeking after "good enough" instead of seeking after the best. We would be better off if we lowered our expectations about the results of decisions. We would be better off if the decisions we made were nonreversible. We would be better off if we paid less attention to what others around us were doing.

1.Choose when to choose.1.1 The key thing to appreciate, though, is that what is most important to us, most of thetime, is not the objective results of decisions, but the subjective results.....And much of the time, better objective results and worse subjective results are exactly what our overabundance of options provides.1.2 To manage the problem of excessive choice, we must decide which choices in our lives really matter and focus our time and energy there, letting many other opportunities pass us by.1.3 Review some recent decisions that you’ve made, both small and large. Itemize the steps, time, research, and anxiety that went into making those decisions. Remind yourself how it felt to do that work. Ask yourself how much your final decision benefited from that work.1.4 This exercise may help you better appreciate the costs associated with the decisions you make, which may lead you to give up some decisions altogether or at least to establish rules of thumb for yourself about how many options to consider, or how much time and energy to invest in choosing.1.5 you now know that choice has a downside, an awareness that should make it easier for you to adopt, and live with, a “two options is my limit” rule. It’s worth a try.2. Be a chooser, not a picker.2.1 CHOOSERS ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE ABLE T O REFLECT ON WHAT MAKES a decision important, on whether, perhaps, none of the options should be chosen, on whether a new option should be created, and on what a particular choice says about the chooser as an individual.2.2 But when faced with overwhelming choice, we are forced to become “pickers,” which is to say, relatively passive selectors from whatever is available.2.3 Being a chooser is better, but to have the time to choose more and pick less, we must be willing to rely on habits, customs, norms, and rules to make some decisions automatic.2.4 Shorten or eliminate deliberations about decisions that are unimportant to you;2.5 Use some of the time you’ve freed up to ask yourself what you really want in the areas of your life where decisions matter;2.6 And if you discover that none of the options the world presents in those areas meet your needs, start thinking about creating better options that do.3. Satisfice more and maximize less3.1 Learning to accept “good enough” will simplify decision making and increase satisfaction. 3.2 Nonetheless, everybody satisfices in at least some areas of life, because even for the most fastidious, it’s impossible to be a maximizer about everything. The trick is to learn to embrace and appreciate satisficing, to cultivate it in more and more aspects of life, rather than merely being resigned to it.3.3 To become a satisficer, however, requires that you think carefully about your goals and aspirations, and that you develop well-defined standards for what is “good enough” whenever you face a decision.3.4 Knowing what’s good enough requires knowing yourself and what you care about. So: 1. Think about occasions in life when you settle, comfortably, for “good enough”; 2. Scrutinize how you choose in those areas; 3. Then apply that strategy more broadly.4. Think about the opportunity costs of opportunity costs4.1 Second-order decisions can help here. When we decide to opt out of deciding in some area of life, we don’t have to think about opportunity costs. And being a satisficer can help too. Because satisficers have their own standards for what is “goodenough,” they are less dependent than maximizers on comparison among alternatives.4.2 Unless you’re truly dissatisfied, stick with what you always buy.4.3 Don’t be tempted by “new and improved.”4.4 Don’t “scratch” unless there’s an “itch.”4.5 And don’t worry that if you do this, you’ll miss out on all the new things the world has to offer.4.6 So you’ll stumble onto improvements on your habitual choices without going looking for them. If you sit back and let “new and improved” find you,...5. Make your decision unreversible5.1 What we don’t realize is that the very option of being allowed to change our minds seems to increase the chances that we will change our minds.5.2 When a decision is final, we engage in a variety of psychological processes that enhance our feelings about the choice we made relative to the alternatives. If a decision is reversible, we don’t engage these processes to the same degree.6. Practice the attitude of gratitude6.1 OUR EVALUATION OF OUR CHOICES IS PROFOUNDLY AFFECTED BY what we compare them with, including comparisons with alternatives that exist only in our imaginations.6.2 We can vastly improve our subjective experience by consciously striving to be grateful more often for what is good about a choice or an experience, and to be disappointed less by what is bad about it.6.3 But with practice, we can learn to reflect on how much better things are than they might be, which will in turn make the good things in life feel even better.6.4 Keep a notepad at your bedside. Every morning, when you wake up, or every night, when you go to bed, use the notepad to list five things that happened the daybefore that you’re grateful for. These objects of gratitude occasionally will be big (a job promotion), but most of the time, they will be small (sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window, a kind word from a friend). You will probably feel a little silly and even self-conscious when you start doing this. But if you keep it up, you will find that it gets easier and easier, more and more natural. You also may find yourself discovering many things to be grateful for on even the most ordinary of days. Finally, you may find yourself feeling better and better about your life as it is, and less and less driven to find the “new and improved” products and activities that will enhance it.7. Regret less7.1 THE STING OF REGRET (EITHER A CTUAL OR POTENTIAL) COLORS many decisions, and sometimes influences us to avoid making decisions at all.7.2 We can mitigate regret by 1. Adopting the standards of a satisficer rather than amaximizer. 2. Reducing the number of options we consider before making a decision. 3. Practicing gratitude for what is good in a decision rather than focusing on our disappointments with what is bad.8. Anticipate adaptation8.1 We can’t prevent adaptation. What we can do is develop realistic expectations about how experiences change with time.8.2 Learning to be satisfied as pleasures turn into mere comforts will ease disappointment with adaptation when it occurs.8.3 Not only do we adapt to a given experience so that it feels less good over time, but we can also adapt to a given level of feeling good so that it stops feeling good enough.8.4 As you buy your new car, acknowledge that the thrill won’t be quite the same two months after you own it.8.5 Spend less time looking for the perfect thing (maximizing), so that you won’t have huge search costs to be “amortized” against the satisfaction you derive from what you actually choose.8.6 Remind yourself of how good things actually are instead of focusing on how they’re less good than they were at first.9. Control expectation9.1 OUR EVALUATION OF EXPERIENCE IS SUBSTANTIALLY INFLUENCED BY how it compares with our expectations. So what may be the easiest route to increasing satisfaction with the results of decisions is to remove excessively high expectations about them.9.2 So to make the task of lowering expectations easier: 1. Reduce the number of options you consider. 2. Be a satisficer rather than a maximizer. 3. Allow for serendipity.10. Curtail social comparison10.1 Though social comparison can provide useful information, it often reduces our satisfaction. So by comparing ourselves to others less, we will be satisfied more.10.2 Remember that “He who dies with the most toys wins” is a bumper sticker, not wisdom.10.3 Focus on what makes you happy, and what gives meaning to your life.11. Learn to love constraints11.1 In circumstances like this, we should learn to view limits on the possibilities we face as liberating not constraining.11.2 By deciding to follow a rule (for example, always wear a seat belt), we avoid having to make a deliberate decision again and again. This kind of rule-following frees up time and attention that can be devoted to thinking about choices and decisions to which rules don’t apply.11.3

Maximizer-determined to make only the best decision. Better off seeking what's good enough.