Choice Part II: Satisficers vs. Optimizers

Apparently, there are different kinds of choosers. Satisficers and Optimizers. (The word Satisficer gets points not only for standing for a useful concept, but also for being a portmanteau of 2 other words.)

Satisficers have a set of criteria and will look at options until they find an option that meets their criteria. An optimizer, meanwhile, wants to explore every option before making a decision, no matter how many things they have to look at. 

My husband is a Satisficer. Say we are looking for a new TV. He is really good at taking a list of criteria and finding some options on, say, the Internet that fit these criteria, and then reading reviews to choose the best of the few options he has identified in order to choose something that will work well for us.

I, on the other hand, feel like I need to look at every single TV on the market, consider all variables equally, and then make the perfect decision, taking into account every feature, even ones we don't actually care about, like, maybe, 3D capability. The result? I drive myself insane and never make a choice. It's no way to live. (Although, I have noticed that if you go without something like a TV for long enough, someone will eventually offer you their cast-off and out-of-date TV, and I am pretty much always satisfied with hand-me-downs, which is ironic, because in that situation I get to choose none of the variables. Although maybe that's not ironic, given the Paradox of Choice.)

Here is a great post about Satisficers vs. Optimizers. The part I think applies here most:

There is a famous study looking at jam.  People bought more jam when they got to choose between 6 types of jam than when they had to choose between 24 types.  The theory is that when given too many choices, they became paralyzed and rather than optimizing, they made no choice at all. 

I love the saying, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." I talk about it all the time. Here is Gretchen Rubin's take on it. When it comes to choices, I definitely have to remember it, but it is so hard for me. My husband makes good choices. I make none. So my husband gets to drive the choosing, while I play an advisory role. He sums up the pertinent variables and finds a couple of good enough options, and I chime in along the way. It works really well, as long as I can keep my inner control freak under control.