The art of choosing Sheena Iyengar
today I’m going to take you around the
world in 18 minutes my base of
operations is in the US but let’s start
at the other end of the map in Kyoto
Japan where I was living with a Japanese
family while I was doing part of my
dissertation Ulrike our cultural
differences and misunderstandings but
they popped up when I least expected it
on my first day I went to a restaurant
and I ordered a cup of green tea with
sugar after a pause the waiter said when
does not put sugar in green tea I know I
said I’m aware of this custom but I
really like my tea suite in response he
gave me an even more courteous version
of the same explanation one does not put
sugar in green tea I understand I said
that the Japanese do not put sugar in
their green tea but I’d like to put some
sugar in my green tea
surprised by my insistence the waiter
had to took up the issue with the
manager pretty soon a lengthy discussion
ensued and finally the manager came over
to me and said I am very sorry we do not
have sugar well since I couldn’t have my
tea the way I wanted it I ordered a cup
of coffee which the waiter brought
brought over promptly resting on the
saucer were two packets of sugar my
failure to procure myself a cup of sweet
green tea was not due to a simple
misunderstanding
this was due to a fundamental difference
in our ideas about choice for my
American perspective when a paying
customer makes a reasonable request
based on her preferences she has every
right to have that request but the
American way to quote Burger King is to
have it your way because the Starbucks
says happiness is in your choices but
from the Japanese perspective it’s their
duty to protect those who don’t know any
better in this case the ignorant gaijin
for making the wrong choice let’s face
it the way I wanted my tea was
inappropriate according to cultural
standards and they were doing their best
to help me say face Americans tend to
believe that they’ve reached some sort
of pinnacle in the way they practice
choice they think the choice is seen
through the American lens best fulfills
an innate and universal desire for
choice in all humans
unfortunately these beliefs are based on
assumptions that don’t always hold true
in many countries in many cultures at
times they don’t even hold true in
America’s own borders I’d like to
discuss some of these assumptions and
the problems associated with them as I
do so I hope you’ll start thinking about
some of your own assumptions and how
they were shaped by your backgrounds
first assumption if a choice affects you
then you should be the one to make it
this is the only way to ensure that your
preferences and
interests will be most fully accounted
for it is essential for success in
America
the primary locus of choice is the
individual people must choose for
themselves sometimes sticking to their
guns regardless of what other people
want to recommend
it’s called being true to yourself but
do all individuals benefit from taking
such an approach to choice mark clipper
and I did a series of studies in which
we sought the answer to this very
question in one study which we ran in
Japan town San Francisco we brought
seven to nine year-old angle and
asian-american children into the
laboratory and we divided them up into
three groups the first group came in and
they were greeted by Miss Smith who
showed them six peak piles of anagram
puzzles the kids got to choose which
pile of anagrams they would like to do
and they even got to choose which marker
they would write their answers with when
the second group of children came in
they were brought to the same room shown
the same anagrams but this time Miss
Smith told them which anagrams to do and
which markers to write their answers
with now when the third group came in
they were told that their anagrams and
their markers had been chosen by their
mothers
in reality the kids who were told would
to do whether by Miss Smith or their
mothers were actually given the very
same activity which their counterparts
and the first group had freely chosen
with this procedure we were able to
ensure that the kids across the three
groups all did the same activity making
it easier for us to compare performance
such small differences in the way we
administered the activity yielded
striking differences in how well they
performed in low Americans they did two
and a half times more anagrams when they
got to choose them as compared to when
it was chosen for them by Miss Smith or
their mothers it didn’t matter who did
the choosing if the task was dictated by
another their performance suffered in
fact some of the kids were visibly
embarrassed when they were told that
their mothers had been consulted one
girl named Mary said you asked my mother
in contrast Asian American children
performed best when they believed their
mothers had made the choice second best
when they chose for themselves and least
well when it had been chosen by Miss
Smith a girl named Natsume even
approached Miss Smith as she was leaving
the room and tugged on her skirt and
asked could you please tell my mommy I
did it just like she said the first
generation children were strongly
influenced by their immigrant parents
approach to choice for them choice was
not just a way of defining and asserting
their individuality but a way to create
community and harmony by deferring to
the choices of people who may trust it
and respect it if they had a concept of
being true to oneself then that self
most likely composed not of an
individual but of a collective success
was just as much about pleasing key
figures as it was about satisfying one’s
own preferences or you could say that
the individuals preferences were shaped
by
preferences of specific others the
assumption then that we do best when the
individual self chooses only holes when
that self is clearly divided from others
when in contrast two or more individuals
see their choices and their outcomes as
intimately connected then they may
amplify one another success by turning
choosing into a collective act to insist
that they choose independently might
actually compromise both their
performance and their relationships yet
that is exactly what the American
paradigm demands it leaves little room
for interdependence or an
acknowledgement of individual phal
ability it requires that everyone treat
choice as a private and self defining
act people that have grown up in such a
paradigm might find it motivating but it
is a mistake to assume that everyone
thrives under the pressure of choosing
alone the second assumption which
informs the American view of choice goes
something like this the more choices you
have the more likely you are to make the
best choice so bring it on Walmart with
a hundred thousand different products
Amazon with 27 million bucks and
match.com with what is it 15 million
date possibilities now you will surely
find the perfect match let’s test this
assumption by heading over to Eastern
Europe here I interviewed people who
were residents of formerly communist
countries we’d all face the challenge of
transitioning to a more democratic and
capitalistic society one of the most
interesting revelations came not from an
answer to a question but from a simple
gesture of hospitality when the
participants arrived for their interview
I offered them a set of drinks coke dyed
coke sprite
seven to be exact during the very first
session which was run in Russia what are
the participants made
comment that really caught me off guard
oh but it doesn’t matter it’s all just
soda that’s just one choice I was so
struck by this comment that from then on
I started to offer all the participants
those seven sodas and I asked them how
many choices are these again and again
they perceived these seven different
sodas not as seven choices but as one
choice soda or no soda when I put out
juice and water in addition to these
seven sodas now they perceived it as
Billy three choices juice water and soda
compare this to the die-hard devotion of
many Americans not just to a particular
flavor of soda but to a particular brand
you know research shows repeatedly that
we can’t actually tell the difference
between Coke and Pepsi of course you and
I know that Coke is the better choice
for modern Americans who are exposed to
more options and more ads associated
with options than anyone else in the
world choice is just as much about who
they are as it is about what the product
is combine this with the assumption that
more choices are always better and you
have a group of people for whom every
little difference matters and so every
choice matters but for Eastern Europeans
the sudden availability of all these
consumer products on the marketplace was
a deluge
they were flooded with choice before
they could protest that they did not
swim when asked what words and images do
you associate with choice
greggers from Warsaw said ah for me it
is fear there are some dilemmas you see
I am used to no choice Bohdan from Kiev
said in response to how we felt about
the new consumer marketplace is too much
we do not need everything that is there
a sociologist from the Warsaw survey
agency explained the older generation
jumped from nothing to choice all around
them they were never given a chance to
learn how to react and Tomas a young
Polish man said I do not need twenty
kinds of chewing gum I don’t mean to say
that I want no choice but many of these
choices are quite artificial in reality
many choices are between things that are
not that much different the value of
choice depends on our ability to
perceive differences between the options
Americans train their whole lives to
play spot the difference they practice
this from such an early age that they’ve
come to believe that everyone must be
born with this ability in fact though
all humans share a basic need and desire
for choice we don’t all see choice in
the same places or to the same extent
when someone can’t see how one choice is
unlike another when there are too many
choices to compare and contrast the
process of choosing can be confused
and frustrated instead of making better
choices we’ve become overwhelmed by
choice
sometimes even afraid of it choice no
longer offers opportunities but imposes
constraints it’s not a marker of
liberation but of suffocation by
meaningless minutiae in other words
choice can develop into the very
opposite of everything it represents in
America when it is thrust upon those who
are insufficiently prepared for it but
it is not only other people in other
places that are feeling the pressure of
ever-increasing choice Americans
themselves are discovering that
unlimited choice seems more attractive
in theory than in practice we all have
physical mental and emotional and
emotional limitations that make it
impossible for us to process every
single choice we encounter even in the
grocery store let alone over the course
of our entire lives a number of my
studies have shown that when you give
people 10 or more options when they’re
making a choice they make poor decisions
whether it be health care investment
other critical areas it’s still many of
us believe that we should make all our
own choices and seek out even more of
them this brings me to the third and
perhaps most problematic assumption you
must never say no to choice to examine
is let’s go back to the US and then hop
across the pond to France right outside
Chicago a young couple Susan and Daniel
Mitchell were about to have their first
baby they’d already picked out a name
for her Barbara after her grandmother
one night when Susan was 7 months
pregnant she started to experience
contractions and was rushed to the
emergency room the baby was delivered
through a c-section
but Barbara suffered cerebral anoxia a
loss of oxygen to the brain unable to
breathe on her own she was put on a
ventilator
two days later the doctors gave the
Mitchells a choice they could either
remove Barbara off the life support in
which case she would die within a matter
of hours or they could keep her on life
support in which case she might still
die within a matter of days if she
survived she would remain in a permanent
vegetative state never able to walk talk
or interact with others what do they do
what do any parent do in a study I
conducted with Simona Botti and Cristina
or folly American and French parents
were interviewed they had all suffered
the same tragedy in all cases the life
support was removed and the infants had
died but there was a big difference in
France the doctors decided whether and
when the life support would be removed
while in the United States the final
decision rested with the parents we
wondered does this have an effect on how
the parents cope with the loss of their
loved one we found that it did even up
to a year later American parents were
more likely to express negative emotions
as compared to their French counterparts
French parents were more likely to say
things like no one was here for so
little time but he taught us so much he
gave us a new perspective on life
American parents were more likely to say
things like what if what if another
parents complained I feel as if they
purposely tortured me how did they get
meted to that and another parent said I
feel as if I’ve played a role in an
execution but when the American parents
were asked if they would rather have had
the doctors make the decision they all
said no they could not
imagine turning that choice over to
another even though having made that
choice made them feel trapped guilty
angry in a number of cases they were
even clinically depressed these parents
could not contemplate giving up the
choice because to do so would have gone
contrary to everything they had been
taught and everything they had come to
believe about the power and purpose of
choice in her essay the White Album Joan
Didion writes we tell ourselves stories
in order to live we interpret what we
see select the most workable of the
multiple choices we live entirely by the
imposition of a narrative line upon
disparate images by the idea with which
we learn to freeze the shifting
phantasmagoria which is our actual
experience the story Americans tell the
story upon which the American Dream
depends is the story of limitless choice
this narrative promises so much freedom
happiness success it lays the world at
your feet and says you can have anything
everything it’s a great story and it’s
understandable why they would be
reluctant to revise it but when you take
a close look you start to see the holes
and you start to see that the story can
be told in many other ways Americans
have so often tried to disseminate their
ideas of choice believing that they will
be or ought to be welcomed with open
hearts and minds but the history books
and the daily news tell us it doesn’t
always work out that way the fence has
magorium the actual experience that we
try to understand and organize through
narrative varies from place to place
no single narrative serves
needs of everyone everywhere moreover
Americans themselves could benefit from
incorporating new perspectives into
their own narrative which has been
driving their choices for so long
Robert Frost once said that it is poetry
that is lost in translation this
suggests that whatever is beautiful and
moving whatever gives us a new way to
see cannot be communicated to those who
speak a different language but Joseph
Brodsky said that it is poetry that is
gained in translation suggesting the
translation can be a creative
transformative act when it comes to
choice we have far more to gain than to
lose by engaging in the many
translations of the narratives instead
of replacing one story with another we
can learn from and revel in the many
versions that exist and the many that
have yet to be written no matter where
we’re from and what your narrative is we
all have a responsibility to open
ourselves up to a wider array of what
choice can do and what it can represent
and this does not lead to a paralyzing
moral relativism rather it teaches us
when and how to act it brings us that
much closer to realizing the full
potential of choice to inspiring the
hope and achieving the freedom that
choice promises but doesn’t always
deliver if we learn to speak to one
another albeit through translation then
we can begin to see choice and all its
strangeness complexity and compelling
beauty thank you
Thank You Sheena there is a detail that
about your biography that we have not
written in the program book but by now
it’s evident to everyone in this room
you’re blind and I guess one of the
questions in everybody’s mind is how
does that influence your study of
choosing because that’s an activity that
for most people is associated with
visual inputs like aesthetics and color
and and so on
well it’s funny that you should ask that
because one of the things that’s
interesting about being blind is you
actually get a different vantage point
when you observe other the way sighted
people make choices and as you just
mentioned these lots of choices out
there that are very visual these days
yeah I like you know as you would expect
get pretty frustrated by choices like
what nail polish color to put on because
I have to rely on what other people
suggest right and I can’t decide and so
one time I was in a beauty salon and I
was trying to decide between two very
light shades of pink and one was called
ballet slippers and the other one was
called adorable
and so I asked these two ladies in the
one lady told me well you should
definitely wear ballet slippers but what
does it look like well it’s a very
elegant shade of pink okay great the
other lady tells me to wear adorable
what does it look like it’s a glamorous
shade of pink and so I asked him well
how do I tell them apart what’s
different about them and they said well
one is elegant the other one’s glamorous
okay we got that and the only thing they
had consensus on well if I could see
them I would clearly be able to tell
them apart and what I wondered was
whether they were being affected by the
name or the constants of the color so I
decided to do a little experiment so I
brought these little these two bottles
of nail polish into the laboratory and I
stripped the labels off and I brought
women into the laboratory and I asked
them which one would you pick 50% of the
women accused me of playing a trick of
putting the same colored nail polish in
both those bottles
yeah I wish when you start to wonder who
the Trix really played on now of the of
the women that could tell them apart
when the labels were off they picked
adorable and when the nabel’s when the
labels were on they picked ballet
slippers so as far as I can tell a rose
by any other name probably does look
different and maybe even smells
different