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that if you go without something like a TV for long enough, someone will eventually offer you their cast-off and out-of-date TV, and I am pretty much always satisfied with hand-me-downs, which is ironic, because in that situation I get to choose none of the variables.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.

Choices

Once a number of years ago, I was talking to my mother-in-law about something we were planning. I adore my MIL. She is very independent, and, like the rest of my husband's family, likes to plan things that my family would consider too complicated to entertain. I find this fun, as long as I don't have to be one of the planners. I don't remember what it was we were planning, but I remember at some point in the planning, she said something the gist of which was: "Let's stop planning here; we have some good options, and we can decide later." We have some good options. She says this pretty often, and I usually see it as a good thing, but this was the first time I remember thinking: "What is she talking about!? I don't want some good options! I want one option! I want a clear path, and a plan!"

I think I will probably have a number of posts about choices, and The Paradox of Choice. Some people think that we (first-worlders who aren't in poverty, say) have too many choices in our lives. Too many drawer pulls at Lowe's; too many spaghetti sauces at the grocery store; too many classes in college; too many toys in the playroom. And all these options actually make us unhappy. From the same Wikipedia article:

when people are faced with having to choose one option out of many desirable choices, they will begin to consider hypothetical trade-offs. Their options are evaluated in terms of missed opportunities instead of the opportunity's potential. Schwartz maintains that one of the downsides of making trade-offs is it alters how we feel about the decisions we face; afterwards, it affects the level of satisfaction we experience from our decision.

 From the same article:

when participants [in a study] were faced with a smaller rather than larger array of chocolates, they were actually more satisfied with their tasting.

It seems to me that too many choices can really snuff out feelings of abundance in many situations. I have noticed this in my closet, and I think it applies in many other areas as well. To be continued, I hope...