You Want the 32oz or the Large?
I remember in one episode of The Office when it was "pretzel day", the one day of the year the building property manager brings in a pretzel cart to hand out free pretzels to the tenants of the building. After the announcement that the cart has arrived and is now serving pretzels, Steve Carrell, barely containing his excitement, strolls casually down the lobby to get his pretzel only to find there is a huge line to wait in.
So, after waiting patiently, this little pretzel cart vendor asks him what kind of toppings he wants on his pretzel. When Carrell's character asks what his options are, the pretzel man pours forth about thirty different options. As he's spewing them out, the excited smile slowly drains away from Carrell's face, as he realizes in dismay that he can't possibly decide what topping he wants. "Is there any way you can, uh, do all of them?" he asks cautiously.
"'The Works'? Sure," the vendor says, and immediately starts preparing his pretzel which is covered in about thirty different condiments that no sane person would ever put together. Relief rushes into Carrell's face. His pretzel is on its way, and he didn't have to decide.
I've been there before. Being offered lots of choices is not liberating...it's depressing. I remember back in Michigan we had a store called Meijer, which I have to to admit I miss a great deal. Yes, I live someplace with a beach and nice weather 98% of the time, but every time I'm slogging through the aisles of K-Mart, trying to find some nice thing amidst their hoards of useless and overpriced junk, I find myself missing the convenience of Meijer. If you're in the Midwest and you live close to one of them, count yourself lucky you have that as an option.
Meijer had a huge isle full of liquor, and I remember running down the isle, stocking up on booze for a party I was having at my apartment, and I was tossing bottles into my cart much the same way that Nicolas Cage did in the opening scene of the movie Leaving Las Vegas. On one side of the isle, there was booze, and the other side: snack chips. My girlfriend mentioned that we needed to get some potato chips or something to have on hand for the party, and so I turned around to face the wall of snack foods opposite the wall of liquor.
Immediately I felt overwhelmed, just at the sight of all of them. There was just an astonishing number of types of chips. Tortilla chips, in many different shapes, some with lime, some with spice. Doritos. Sun Chips. An entire massive wall of air-filled bags containing junk food. Bags came in different sizes, different weights, and they were all different prices. I didn't even know where to start looking.
And it's not even a matter of deciding upon the brand of chip. Even if you narrow it down and decide that you're going to simply buy Doritos, there are at least a dozen different kinds of Doritos peppering the wall of snack food at Meijer. And then you're faced with a tricky decision: do I go with the original flavor, which is probably a safe bet, or do I take a risk and get something more exciting, like the Cool Ranch Spice. If I'm conservative and go with original, then I'll always wonder if I was missing out. If I try a new kind, I might end up with a bag of chips that nobody really likes.
This prospect might sound kind of silly, because they're just snack chips, for God's sake. Don't we have better things to do than worry about the subtleties of our own unhappiness as consumers? I would hope so...but the implications of this reach beyond the retail world. Take politics: why are there only two major political parties and not, say, a dozen, each with roughly an equal portion of citizen mindshare? Because it's easy for the average person to pit two parties against one another and compare them. It's one line you need to draw in the sand, so to speak. With 12 separate parties, you need to make 66 unique comparisons to compare each party with the other 11, and 66 requires a lot of time to spend trying to make a decision. That's overwhelming. With that complicated of a political system, you'd better believe I'd be partaking in some anarchy just to stay sane.
The formula for the number of unique comparisons, given x number of choices, is: x * (x-1) / 2. Let's imagine you go into a coffee shop to get a cup of tea, and there are 20 teas to choose from. About 9 of them are green tea, and you can't stand green tea, so you can eliminate those. That leaves you with 11 choices, and 55 comparisons you need to consider. Which one is better than all the others? Your brain will likely be overwhelmed at the prospect, and you'll just grab the first one that sounds good. But was it really the best choice... (?)
From a psychological standpoint, we're not made happy by more choices. On the contrary: more choices make us miserable. And as a very indirect means of arguing my point, I'm going to plug this book: The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More. The author elaborates on how more choices cause us mental misery, and sums up why I detest going to the grocery store these days.
So, after waiting patiently, this little pretzel cart vendor asks him what kind of toppings he wants on his pretzel. When Carrell's character asks what his options are, the pretzel man pours forth about thirty different options. As he's spewing them out, the excited smile slowly drains away from Carrell's face, as he realizes in dismay that he can't possibly decide what topping he wants. "Is there any way you can, uh, do all of them?" he asks cautiously.
"'The Works'? Sure," the vendor says, and immediately starts preparing his pretzel which is covered in about thirty different condiments that no sane person would ever put together. Relief rushes into Carrell's face. His pretzel is on its way, and he didn't have to decide.
I've been there before. Being offered lots of choices is not liberating...it's depressing. I remember back in Michigan we had a store called Meijer, which I have to to admit I miss a great deal. Yes, I live someplace with a beach and nice weather 98% of the time, but every time I'm slogging through the aisles of K-Mart, trying to find some nice thing amidst their hoards of useless and overpriced junk, I find myself missing the convenience of Meijer. If you're in the Midwest and you live close to one of them, count yourself lucky you have that as an option.
Meijer had a huge isle full of liquor, and I remember running down the isle, stocking up on booze for a party I was having at my apartment, and I was tossing bottles into my cart much the same way that Nicolas Cage did in the opening scene of the movie Leaving Las Vegas. On one side of the isle, there was booze, and the other side: snack chips. My girlfriend mentioned that we needed to get some potato chips or something to have on hand for the party, and so I turned around to face the wall of snack foods opposite the wall of liquor.
Immediately I felt overwhelmed, just at the sight of all of them. There was just an astonishing number of types of chips. Tortilla chips, in many different shapes, some with lime, some with spice. Doritos. Sun Chips. An entire massive wall of air-filled bags containing junk food. Bags came in different sizes, different weights, and they were all different prices. I didn't even know where to start looking.
And it's not even a matter of deciding upon the brand of chip. Even if you narrow it down and decide that you're going to simply buy Doritos, there are at least a dozen different kinds of Doritos peppering the wall of snack food at Meijer. And then you're faced with a tricky decision: do I go with the original flavor, which is probably a safe bet, or do I take a risk and get something more exciting, like the Cool Ranch Spice. If I'm conservative and go with original, then I'll always wonder if I was missing out. If I try a new kind, I might end up with a bag of chips that nobody really likes.
This prospect might sound kind of silly, because they're just snack chips, for God's sake. Don't we have better things to do than worry about the subtleties of our own unhappiness as consumers? I would hope so...but the implications of this reach beyond the retail world. Take politics: why are there only two major political parties and not, say, a dozen, each with roughly an equal portion of citizen mindshare? Because it's easy for the average person to pit two parties against one another and compare them. It's one line you need to draw in the sand, so to speak. With 12 separate parties, you need to make 66 unique comparisons to compare each party with the other 11, and 66 requires a lot of time to spend trying to make a decision. That's overwhelming. With that complicated of a political system, you'd better believe I'd be partaking in some anarchy just to stay sane.
The formula for the number of unique comparisons, given x number of choices, is: x * (x-1) / 2. Let's imagine you go into a coffee shop to get a cup of tea, and there are 20 teas to choose from. About 9 of them are green tea, and you can't stand green tea, so you can eliminate those. That leaves you with 11 choices, and 55 comparisons you need to consider. Which one is better than all the others? Your brain will likely be overwhelmed at the prospect, and you'll just grab the first one that sounds good. But was it really the best choice... (?)
From a psychological standpoint, we're not made happy by more choices. On the contrary: more choices make us miserable. And as a very indirect means of arguing my point, I'm going to plug this book: The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More. The author elaborates on how more choices cause us mental misery, and sums up why I detest going to the grocery store these days.