Maximizing Freedom

Nowadays customers want choices. Even fast food menus like Wendy’s have grown to include other options to go with your meal. The phrase is no longer, “Do you want fried with that?” but rather, “Do you want fries, a salad, mandarin oranges, baked potato, or chili with that?” Here in America we value these options because we perceive them as a means to more freedom. Psychologist Barry Schwartz dissects the impact of excessive choices on the consumer to determine if the benefits outweigh the costs in his speech on “The Paradox of Choice.”

Schwartz breaks down the negative effects of too many choices into two main categories: consumer paralysis and decision regret. Paralysis, he explains, comes from being overwhelmed with options to the point of putting our decision off for the future. I have definitely felt this effect as a Business Student at McCombs. There is often so many opportunities to practice for interviews, attend company info sessions, learn how to fix my resume, etcetera that I would need to so major scheduling before I could fit it all in. Of course 99% of the time I don’t. So here I am, paralyzed.

The second negative effect of too many choices is after-purchase regret, or cognitive dissonance. Who hasn’t felt this? It may be the fact that I’m still in school and pretty poor for the moment, but I think about my purchases way too much after the fact. Even after arriving back home from the grocery store I can’t help but wonder, “Should I have got this kind of lunch meat? What if no one eats it and it goes bad?” Pretty lame, I realize, but true.

Consumer decisions are effected by this “freedom” phenomenon every day. As Schwartz mentions in his lecture, we can’t even buy jeans without having to choose between at least 6 different styles.

There is a delicate line when it comes to freedom. It may seem ideal to always have our choice yet we need some structure to truly be free.