For the past two decades, Columbia Business School social psychologist Sheena Iyengar, PhD, has conducted groundbreaking research on choice, showing that the parameters surrounding our decisions can highly influence the results. When we face too many choices, for instance, it's harder to make a choice and feel good about it than if we were simply given fewer options. Similarly, we're happier with our choices when we choose products in a group rather than those same products in sequence, partly because when presented with objects one at a time, we tend to imagine and hope for a better choice that usually doesn't appear (Journal of Consumer Researchopens in new window, 2013).
Because the psychology of choice plays a key role in nudge interventions, researchers have drawn on Iyengar's findings to prod people into more desirable decisions. "My research offered a kind of impetus to say, ‘Look, choice can be overwhelming,'" says Iyengar, who launched her research on choice with a 2000 study with Mark R. Lepper, PhD, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychologyopens in new window. That research found that people were more likely to choose from six gourmet jams or chocolates than from 24 or 30 and were happier with those purchases. Nudgers have used these and related findings to help people make better choices by offering them a smaller array of options to choose from when considering whether to take a loan, select health insurance or make other important decisions (see Coaxing better behavior).
But while Iyengar and proponents of nudge agree on the way people respond in the face of too many choices, their work differs in philosophy and application.
Take their views on retirement plans. A key nudge tactic is to automatically put people into a plan, so if they don't want to join, they must actively opt out. Iyengar, though, has people consider the long-term benefits of saving for retirement — how it would feel to be able to meet your expenses as you age, for example, versus making an immediate impulse purchase, such as a $70,000 sports car.
In another example, nudgers might try to get people to choose a healthier drink in a hospital cafeteria line by placing it prominently within reach and sight. Conversely, Iyengar might suggest interventions that ask people to consider the long-term benefits of healthy eating — fewer illnesses, for example, or more time with one's grandchildren.
As it turns out, nudgers trump Iyengar in their success levels. Their retirement strategies glean participation rates of up to 98 percent, versus 85 percent to 90 percent for Iyengar's method, for instance. But Iyengar is convinced her strategy better respects people's autonomy and is more effective in the long run because it deliberately engages people in their own choice-making — teaching them how to fish rather than giving them a fish dinner, so to speak. Her approach also eliminates concerns that in the wrong hands, nudge interventions could be used for nefarious purposes.
"I'm much more about making it transparent in terms of the tradeoff" between what you are choosing and its consequences, she says.
Iyengar also thinks we need to consider choosing in broader terms than picking among options A, B or C. Choice can empower us when we use it actively as a way to forge new paths or opportunities, she asserts. An example is considering your next career, job or professional move by actively assessing your talents, experience, interests, inspirations and other factors.
"We often think of choosing as a way to express ourselves or to get what we want — going to a store, looking at all the options, and then picking something," she says. "But I don't think we get most of our benefits from picking. It's when we see how to create a new choice" that fits our needs, goals, desires and inspirations, "that we are tapping into its power."
Moreover, good choosing strategies should be taught as early as possible, she maintains.
"We already use the school system to teach children how to reason," she says. "Part and parcel of that should be teaching them how to choose — how to compare and contrast a set of trade-offs. That is a skill, and they should learn that earlier rather than being thrust into learning it as adults."
— Tori DeAngelis