Almost everyday at Valentine, before I take my requisite bowl of Kashi Heart-to-Heart, I head over to the pizza station and survey the scene. I like to see what ridiculous creation is on tap for the day. Potato pizza? Pineapple, pepper and pepperoni? Chicken and pesto? How about plain cheese pizza?
I am generally completely overwhelmed and do not take any slice to eat. In fact, this semester, I had one piece of Valentine Pizza. There are so many outrageous creations, and I can’t decide which one to eat, so I end up eating nothing.
This paradox led to an interesting Valentine conversation with the basic question: is choice a good thing? Would the pizza guy be better off sticking to 2-3 regular, solid, predictable flavors as opposed to 8-10 seemingly random concoctions. Would I consume more of his product if there was less of it?
Barry Schwartz, a sociology professor at Swarthmore College and author of The Paradox of Choice, would probably tell the pizza guy to slow down and stop making so many freaking flavors. An Amherst student showed me a YouTube clip of Schwartz talking about choice. In it, Schwartz lists out the four negative consequences that have arisen from the overabundance of choice:
1. Regret and anticipated regret–If the product is not perfect, then you instantly wonder what could have been. Thus, before you make a decision, you are met by a sort of paralysis, rather than a liberation since you don’t want to mess up and feel regret later on.
2. Opportunity Costs–As alternative options have become more attractive, the opportunity costs to decisions have gone up.
3. Escalation of Expectations–You expect perfection; anything less, and you’ll be left disappointed.
4. Self-blame–With limited choices, if a product is bad, the honus goes on the producer. Today with so many choices, if a product is bad, the honus goes on you, because you could have chosen something better. Thus you get sad and depressed for your stupid decision.
“There’s no question that some choice is better than none, but it doesn’t follow from that, that more choice is better than some choice,” said Schwartz. Adding, “We have long since past the point where options improve our welfare.”
Instead, too much choice has created a “recipe for misery and disaster” according to Schwartz.
What should we make of this world of seemingly unlimited choice, where 10 different cereals, pizza flavors and drinks are offered to us each day at Val? In certain cases, as with the pizza, I simply don’t make a decision. In other cases, as with the cereal and drinks, I use habit to defeat the overwhelming grasp of choice. I eat the same cereal/drinks every meal, and establish a comfort zone. Others simply mix five drinks or cereals together at one time so they don’t have to make a decision yet they still don’t starve.
“The secret to happiness,” according to Schwartz, “is low expectations.” With this in mind, maybe I’ll finally try one of Mr. Pizza’s crazy creations tomorrow at Val.
On second thought, I think I’ll probably stick to my Kashi and Turkey Sandwich. I wouldn’t want to stray too far away from my habits with just a few days left here at Amherst.
(How the heck do I post YouTube clips on this?)
8 responses so far ↓
1 Stephen Stewart (sastewart09) // May 21, 2008 at 7:45 am
No idea on the YouTube clips, Jon, but a great entry nonetheless.
Choice is becoming a serious problem as we delve deeper into a consumer’s market. Gone are the days where one company made far and away the best product and you were a fool not to pick that one. Let’s think about cameras.
Nikon and Canon have always been the top dogs of the market and still are to some degree but now Sony, Pentax and other companies are making viable alternatives that actually add up to and in some instances outperform some aspects of “the big two.” Not to mention the advent of 3rd party lens developers creating increasingly better optics, we are now no longer tied to the big two’s death grip.
So is choice good? I think the issues elucidated with it in your entry complicate the issue, but if you factor in things like company loyalty and established reputation and what not, I think people should have a choice because it then allows them to tie themselves to their investments.
2 irradient (yhuang11) // May 21, 2008 at 9:42 am
At least for Val, there’s time for a person to try every different flavor. What I mean by this is perhaps one should venture a different slice of pizza every time he or she decides to have pizza for lunch or dinner. A big part of discovering new things is getting out of one’s comfort zone–at least, that’s what I think.
3 Esteban Parker (eparker10) // May 21, 2008 at 1:38 pm
‘“The secret to happiness,” according to Schwartz, “is low expectations.” ‘
I don’t see how you can ever have high expectations when it comes to anything from val.
4 Gregory Campeau (gcampeau11) // May 21, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I’m just glad I have the choice of not eating Val pizza.
5 Deidra Montgomery (dmontgomery10) // May 21, 2008 at 9:29 pm
One of the things about Val pizzas is that the toppings usually consist of left-overs from the previous day’s meals. So if they were to cut down on the choices, then they would have no way to disguise the fact that they are recycling dishes that people didn’t like the day before. With certain dishes, left-overs are happily consumed, but with others, the Powers that Be Val think they can trick us into eating them. The Powers that Be in Val are incorrect.
6 Raizel (rbahr10) // May 22, 2008 at 12:43 am
Great post, JThrope. I can probably show you how to embed videos tomorrow at the office if you like.
7 Dave Ullman (dullman10) // May 22, 2008 at 12:47 am
Wow, people hating on Val…not like that’s easy to do or anything! And how original!
Great post, Jon. The way I understand it, coding in WordPress is nearly identical to HTML - which is great if you know HTML, but bad if you don’t know anything about coding (me). However, YouTube makes it easy - they include an embedding link to the right of the video. I think if you just copy/paste that link, you should be fine.
8 Dave Ullman (dullman10) // May 22, 2008 at 1:26 am
Well, I’m trying - I can’t do it either. There seems to be a solution on YouTube, but I’m trying that and still not getting any results.
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