Choices! Choices! Choices!

This week I was perusing the Chronicle of Higher Education and came across an article about the psychology behind choice. Sheena Iyengar, a social psychologist who teaches in the business department at Columbia has just come out with a book called The Art of Choosing, in which she breaks down the reasons why, and how, our brains make choice. Iyengar made a name for herself in the social psychology field due to something called the Jam Study, in which she set up a tasting station in a grocery store that switched between offering customers half a dozen and two dozen samples of jam. While the display with 24 jams attracted more customers, the display with only six options resulted in more sales. The hypothesis is that too many choices deter people from making a decision. It was not the first time that the idea of too many choices were examined by psychologists - in the 1950s, a psychologist named George A. Miller identified that the human brain can really only handle around seven bits of information at a time. Some of the most interesting findings indicate that while people crave choice, they are overwhelmed to the point of inaction when they are faced with more than a fistful of options.

Popular cultural inundates people with choices. It's the consumer drive of America! I can only assume that the desire for more choices over the past 50 years was tied to the Cold War and the assumption that only Communist nations would limit product options for its citizens, so the U.S. had to overcompensate. Well comrades, I am going to admit to feeling a little overwhelmed by options. Have you purchased toothpaste lately? How many versions of whitening/tarter control/fresh-cool-winter mint/cavity protection does a person really need? For those of you that love the options, tell me the last time you played the toothpaste field! Last month? Last year? Several years ago? And do you alternate between paste and gel, or brands? My guess is that you have found a toothpaste you like and you pretty much buy that toothpaste each time. I happen to be a paste fan. Gel makes me feel like I'm brushing my teeth with candy. And I purchase the same brand of toothpaste each time, not so much because I love the brand, but because it was what I grew up using and it works just fine. By automatically setting myself up to look for that brand and style, I don't have to stand and contemplate my toothpaste needs in the store aisle. I've provided myself with limited options to help me through the selection process.  I bet many of you have done the same. I don't really consider myself to be brand loyal to my toothpaste. Instead I'm loyal to the idea of quick decision making. Sidenote: I am not a Crest Kid.

Now, as a white American woman, born in a middle class household, I've grown up with options in almost every aspect of my life, from where I wanted to go to school to where I wanted to live. While we like to assume that everyone in America has a "right" to choice, the truth is that these options are a privilege that is unavailable to many people in this country due to their lack of consumer power. Options are only important if you've got the money to make the choice known. I wonder how some of these studies take into consideration the fact that many people have yet to even be in a position to have more than a handful of options?  In other words, why sample jam if you've got no bread to put it on?