Sometimes, I just stand in the grocery store and weep.
I don't know what to buy!
There are too many choices!
WHY IS THIS SO HARD!?!
choosers 25 years ago, the average supermarket had
9,000 products, today, there may be 40,000; but we only need about 150 on average to fulfill
our shopping needs.
If you're like me, hearing I have to pick 150 out of 40,000 things causes anxiety.
During each visit, we decidedly ignore thousands of items choosing only what we need.
The immutable George Carlin spoke often on the illusion of choice, we have hundreds of
brands of dog or cat food, but only a handful of oil companies, political parties and banks.
But choice is hard!!
When confronted with the sheer number of options, some people become paralyzed!
As Neo said, "The problem is choice."
All decisions can be difficult, even if they're meaningless.
What should i do?
Delete that email, or mark it as spam?
That's a decision!
Albeit a lame one.
The neurons in our brain can't really tell the difference between a small decision and
big one, we still expended energy to MAKE the choice.
Stress, fatigue and our own emotions affect our decision processes.
We have to weigh the cost and benefit of each thing, what does it COST me to buy the "wrong"
dog food (even if they're all basically the same), what BENEFIT do I get marking this
as spam?
Registering for wedding gifts, planning a big event, deciding what to do on each day
of a big trip… these things all cause decision fatigue.
Just like with the judges, as we get fatigued, we become more susceptible to shortcuts, or
simply more susceptible to suggestion.
After a while, people just want the decisions to be over.
Why are decisions so hard?
A 2015 study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found this anxiety can
heavily weigh on some people's lives.
They found, judges of a parole hearing granted the parole 65 percent of the time in the morning,
decreasing throughout the day to zero.
If the judges were given a break, their grant rate jumped back to about 65 percent.
Being "the decider" is hard, and it fatigues the brain.
Even when we feel positively about our choices, decisions give us anxiety.
Researchers from Princeton looked at win-win choices in humans in another decision study.
Using a functional MRI to see where blood was flowing in the brain, researchers found
the striatum and prefrontal cortex are both involved when making a decision.
They asked participants how they were feeling.
According to their findings, the more items people have to choose from, the higher their
anxiety about the choice!
We're worried about making the "wrong" choice, and that gives us anxiety; and these were
win-win situations, remember!
The participants were picking between winning a camcorder or a digital camera at auction,
or a desk lamp and a water bottle.
Not exactly tough choices.
These researchers believe the feelings and the anxiety evolved for different reasons;
that they come from different "circuits."
The lead researcher said, "One [circuit] is about evaluating the thing we're going to
get, and the other is about guiding our actions and working out how difficult the choice will
be."
Over multiple experiments they found how much time we have to make the decision isn't important…
Which explains why I stand in the grocery aisle so long looking at the same few cans
of chili tomatoes.
Their findings suggest "the anxiety stems from the conflict of making the decision,"
rather than what they can win from making the right one.
When it comes to big decisions, like going to college or whether to get married, this
anxiety can be paralyzing.
In the Steve Jobs biography, it was described that his house was stark and empty, and that
it took him months or years to pick a couch to buy… sounds like decision paralysis;
also called analysis paralysis.
The anxiety causes people to over-analyze a decision with too many options and to escape
the anxiety, they simply avoid the decision altogether.
Humans are terrible multitaskers.
We can hold onto about three things at once, and when making a decision we can benefit
from trimming the fat.
That might explain why some "geniuses" don't tire themselves by having a variety of clothes
to choose from, or going to a coffee shop with lots of choices.
One shortcut is to just have a regular choice.
Always getting the club sandwich, for example, or grabbing the black turtleneck every day;
will cut back on "decision fatigue," freeing up mental power for more decisions later!
What do you think about decision fatigue?
Is it real?
YOU DECIDE!!
I'll make another decision for you, though, so you're not tired, YES, you want to sub
to DNews!
See?
Isn't that better?
Here's another decision I can make for you, grab a ticket for our live show in San Francisco
coming up next week October 22!
DNews After Dark is going to bring together some of DNews' favorite people for a night
of science on stage, live at the Castro Theater!
Tickets are available through the link in the description and I'd love to see you at
our first-ever show!!
If you don't live nearby, that's okay too.
I've got this video you can watch about how NOT deciding what to wear might help you get
a job.
Thanks for watching DNews, y'all!
Happy decisionmaking!