The Paradox Of Choice
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The Paradox Of Choice
''The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less'' is a book written by American psychologist Barry Schwartz (psychologist), Barry Schwartz and first published in 2004 by Harper Perennial. In the book, Schwartz argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers. The book analyses the behavior of different types of people (in particular, maximizers and Satisficing, satisficers) facing the rich choice. This book argues that the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution and how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse. Summary "Autonomy and freedom of choice are critical to our Well-being, well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern United States, Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, m ...
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Barry Schwartz (psychologist)
Barry Schwartz (born August 15, 1946) is an American psychologist. Schwartz is the Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College and since 2016 has been visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on the intersection of psychology and economics. He frequently publishes editorials in ''The New York Times'', applying his research in psychology to current events. Schwartz's research addresses morality, decision-making and the inter-relationships between behavioral science and society. His books criticize certain philosophical roots of Western societies and expose underlying myths common in both lay and academic psychological theories. In particular, he is a critic of the "rational economic man" model in both psychology and economics. Schwartz studied under David Richmond Williams for his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania where he was a predoctoral fellow with National Science Foundation. Education * BA New ...
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Availability Heuristic
The availability heuristic, also known as availability bias, is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method, or decision. This heuristic, operating on the notion that, if something can be recalled, it must be important, or at least more important than alternative solutions not as readily recalled, is inherently biased toward recently acquired information. The mental availability of an action's consequences is positively related to those consequences' perceived magnitude. In other words, the easier it is to recall the consequences of something, the greater those consequences are often perceived to be. Most notably, people often rely on the content of their recall if its implications are not called into question by the difficulty they have in recalling it. Overview and history In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman began work on a series of papers examining "heur ...
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Free-market
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any other external authority. Proponents of the free market as a normative ideal contrast it with a regulated market, in which a government intervenes in supply and demand by means of various methods such as taxes or regulations. In an idealized free market economy, prices for goods and services are set solely by the bids and offers of the participants. Scholars contrast the concept of a free market with the concept of a coordinated market in fields of study such as political economy, new institutional economics, economic sociology and political science. All of these fields emphasize the importance in currently existing market systems of rule-making institutions external to the simple forces of supply and demand which create space for those fo ...
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Albert Hirschman
Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert (supermarket), a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street market in The Gambia * Albert Productions, a record label * Albert Computers, Inc., a computer manufacturer in the 1980s Entertainment * ''Albert'' (1985 film), a Czechoslovak film directed by František Vláčil * ''Albert'' (2015 film), a film by Karsten Kiilerich * ''Albert'' (2016 film), an American TV movie * ''Albert'' (Ed Hall album), 1988 * "Albert" (short story), by Leo Tolstoy * Albert (comics), a character in Marvel Comics * Albert (''Discworld''), a character in Terry Pratchett's ''Discworld'' series * Albert, a character in Dario Argento's 1977 film ''Suspiria'' Military * Battle of Albert (1914), a WWI battle at Albert, Somme, France * Battle of Albert (1916), a WWI battle at Albert, Somme, France * Battle of Albert (1918), a WWI battle at Albert, Somme, France People * Albert (given ...
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Sheena Iyengar
Sheena S. Iyengar is a former S.T. Lee Professor of Business in the Management Department at Columbia Business School, widely and best known as an expert on choice. Her research focuses on the many facets of decision making, including: why people want choice, what affects how and what we choose, and how we can improve our decision making. She has presented TED talks on choice and is the author of ''The Art of Choosing'' (2010). Early life and education Iyengar was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her parents were immigrants from Delhi, India. As a child, she was diagnosed with a rare form of retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disease of retinal degeneration. By the age of nine, she could no longer read. By the age of sixteen, she was completely blind, although able to perceive light. She remains blind as an adult. Iyengar’s father died of a heart attack when she was thirteen. This change in family circumstances, and Iyengar’s loss of vision, prompted Iyengar’s mo ...
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Individual
An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own Maslow's hierarchy of needs, needs or goals, rights and moral responsibility, responsibilities. The concept of an individual features in diverse fields, including biology, law, and philosophy. Etymology From the 15th century and earlier (and also today within the fields of statistics and metaphysics) ''individual'' meant "divisible, indivisible", typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning "a person". From the 17th century on, ''individual'' has indicated separateness, as in individualism. Law Although individuality and individualism are commonly considered to mature with age/time and experience/wealth, a sanity, sane adult human, human being is usually considered by the State (polity), state as an "individu ...
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Community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighbourhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable good relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community, important to their identity, practice, and roles in social institutions such as family, home, work, government, society, or humanity at large. Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties, "community" may also refer to large group affiliations such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities. The English-language word "community" derives from the Old French ''comuneté'' (Modern French: ''communauté''), which comes from the Latin ''communitas'' "community", "public spirit" (from Latin '' communis'', "co ...
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David Myers (academic)
David Guy Myers (born 20 September 1942) is a professor of psychology at Hope College in Michigan, United States, and the author of 17 books, including popular textbooks entitled ''Psychology'', ''Exploring Psychology'', ''Social Psychology'' and general-audience books dealing with issues related to Christian faith as well as scientific psychology. In addition, he has published chapters in over 60 books and numerous scholarly research articles in professional journals. Myers is widely recognized for his research on happiness and is one of the supporters of the positive psychological movement. Myers was born in Seattle, Washington and graduated from Seattle's Queen Anne High School in 1960. He attended Whitworth University, from which he received his B.A. in chemistry magna cum laude in 1964, having been a pre-med student. However, his graduate work went in a different direction, that of social psychology. He received his M.A. in social psychology in 1966 and his Ph.D. in social ...
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Happiness Economics
The economics of happiness or happiness economics is the theoretical, qualitative and quantitative study of happiness and quality of life, including positive and negative affects, well-being, life satisfaction and related concepts – typically tying economics more closely than usual with other social sciences, like sociology and psychology, as well as physical health. It typically treats subjective happiness-related measures, as well as more objective quality of life indices, rather than wealth, income or profit, as something to be maximized. The field has grown substantially since the late 20th century, for example by the development of methods, surveys and indices to measure happiness and related concepts,• Carol Graham, 2008. "happiness, economics of," ''The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics'', 2nd EditionAbstract.Prepublicatio copy.br />  • _____, 2005. "The Economics of Happiness: Insights on Globalization from a Novel Approach," ''World Economics'', 6(3), pp41 ...
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Satisficing
Satisficing is a decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. The term ''satisficing'', a portmanteau of ''satisfy'' and ''suffice'', was introduced by Herbert A. Simon in 1956, although the concept was first posited in his 1947 book ''Administrative Behavior''. Simon used satisficing to explain the behavior of decision makers under circumstances in which an optimal solution cannot be determined. He maintained that many natural problems are characterized by computational intractability or a lack of information, both of which preclude the use of mathematical optimization procedures. He observed in his Nobel Prize in Economics speech that "decision makers can satisfice either by finding optimum solutions for a simplified world, or by finding satisfactory solutions for a more realistic world. Neither approach, in general, dominates the other, and both have continued to co-exist in the w ...
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Perfectionism (psychology)
Perfectionism, in psychology, is a broad personality style characterized by a person's concern with striving for flawlessness and perfection and is accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations. It is best conceptualized as a multidimensional and multilayered personality characteristic, and initially some psychologists thought that there were many positive and negative aspects. Perfectionism drives people to be concerned with achieving unattainable ideals or unrealistic goals that often lead to many forms of adjustment problems such as depression, anxiety, OCD, OCPD and low self-esteem. These adjustment problems often lead to suicidal thoughts and tendencies and influence or invite other psychological, physical, social, and further achievement problems in children, adolescents, and adults. Although perfectionist sights can reduce stress, anxiety, and panic, recent data, compiled by British psychologists Thomas Curran and Andrew Hill, show t ...
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Satisficer
Satisficing is a decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. The term ''satisficing'', a portmanteau of ''satisfy'' and ''suffice'', was introduced by Herbert A. Simon in 1956, although the concept was first posited in his 1947 book ''Administrative Behavior''. Simon used satisficing to explain the behavior of decision makers under circumstances in which an optimal solution cannot be determined. He maintained that many natural problems are characterized by computational intractability or a lack of information, both of which preclude the use of mathematical optimization procedures. He observed in his Nobel Prize in Economics speech that "decision makers can satisfice either by finding optimum solutions for a simplified world, or by finding satisfactory solutions for a more realistic world. Neither approach, in general, dominates the other, and both have continued to co-exist in the ...
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