Barry Schwartz and Nathan N. Cheek, “Choice, Freedom, and Well-Being:
Considerations for Public Policy.” Behavioural Public Policy 1(1): 106-121, 2017.
• A (misleading?) syllogism: more freedom means higher well-being; more choice means more freedom; therefore…
• Nudges constrict freedom of choice
• Should we maintain free choice (possibly even force people to make choices, as opposed to setting a default, for instance), or promote better choices?
• The availability of options is increasing in much of the world. But more options can: (1) paralyze; (2) spur regret and dissatisfaction; and (3) undermine the (objective) quality of decisions.
• Choices can (1) satisfy our preferences; (2) serve as utilitarian means to our ends; and, (3) express something about us. Pleasure (1) and utility (2) both can be undermined by large choice sets.
• Expanded choice sets provide new options for (3) self-definition. This seems desirable. But they also can increase the expressive stakes for trivial decisions, and those increased stakes need not be beneficial. [Who wants to be judged on what brand of soda they buy?]
• Further, large choice sets might divert increased attention to decisions about material goods, to the detriment of social connections.
• [Warning!: broad-brush cultural commentary to follow:] Western cultures tend to understand people as individuals, and believe that good societies give wide scope to individualism. Large choice sets, then, are requisite for self-realization. More collectivist societies (including working-class America?) might focus on the interdependencies among people, so that a person’s relations are more important than individuality. People in such societies might prefer reduced choice sets.
• Older people seem more comfortable with fewer choices, while younger people prefer large choice sets in domains in which they are confident that they can make competent choices.
• A perceived lack of competence more generally detracts from the desirability of large choice sets – and the competence shortfall might concern knowledge of one's own preferences.
• Large choice sets can involve a cognitive burden, and might be worse for people already facing resource scarcity.
• Perhaps the right policy intervention is to encourage people to think through when they are most interested in making careful choices.
• A (misleading?) syllogism: more freedom means higher well-being; more choice means more freedom; therefore…
• Nudges constrict freedom of choice
• Should we maintain free choice (possibly even force people to make choices, as opposed to setting a default, for instance), or promote better choices?
• The availability of options is increasing in much of the world. But more options can: (1) paralyze; (2) spur regret and dissatisfaction; and (3) undermine the (objective) quality of decisions.
• Choices can (1) satisfy our preferences; (2) serve as utilitarian means to our ends; and, (3) express something about us. Pleasure (1) and utility (2) both can be undermined by large choice sets.
• Expanded choice sets provide new options for (3) self-definition. This seems desirable. But they also can increase the expressive stakes for trivial decisions, and those increased stakes need not be beneficial. [Who wants to be judged on what brand of soda they buy?]
• Further, large choice sets might divert increased attention to decisions about material goods, to the detriment of social connections.
• [Warning!: broad-brush cultural commentary to follow:] Western cultures tend to understand people as individuals, and believe that good societies give wide scope to individualism. Large choice sets, then, are requisite for self-realization. More collectivist societies (including working-class America?) might focus on the interdependencies among people, so that a person’s relations are more important than individuality. People in such societies might prefer reduced choice sets.
• Older people seem more comfortable with fewer choices, while younger people prefer large choice sets in domains in which they are confident that they can make competent choices.
• A perceived lack of competence more generally detracts from the desirability of large choice sets – and the competence shortfall might concern knowledge of one's own preferences.
• Large choice sets can involve a cognitive burden, and might be worse for people already facing resource scarcity.
• Perhaps the right policy intervention is to encourage people to think through when they are most interested in making careful choices.
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