Mind Matters: The paradox of choice

Once upon a time I lived in a little storybook stone house in the Western Pennsylvania countryside. I would walk down the windy driveway to the big mailbox with a little bit of mail. An L.L. Bean or Burpee Seed catalog would arrive with some bills, maybe a letter. (What are they?)

Now? Now I live in Eastern Pennsylvania in another stone house with a big mailbox—which is bursting with catalogs, flyers, and ads, ad nauseum. Nary a letter.

The other change in the past 25 years? The boom of big box business to hold all the consumer items made in China. The abundance of choice in catalogs and consumer goods should make us happy, right?

Well, no, not really. Psychologist Barry Schwarz has researched, written, and spoken extensively on the paradox of choice. According to Dr. Schwarz, giving people too many choices can lessen their satisfaction. We can actually get overwhelmed with a cacophony of choices. Ever walk down the aisles of a grocery store and have your eyes glaze over in, let’s say, the cereal section? Or any section, for that matter.

I remember when my children were little. I would give them choices of what to wear. In other words, “Would you like to wear this—or that?” Some choice, but not too much. Perhaps as adults we are not much different.

Dr. Schwarz observes that there may be two types of choosers. Maximizers are those who search all the options to make the “best” choice, only to be left with nagging doubts. Satisficers spend a lot less time making their choices, having more free time to enjoy, and are happily satisfied with “good enough.”

Wherever we are on the continuum of Maximizers and Satisficers, we all face the existential question of choice beyond the cereal boxes or the TV’s or whatever consumer item it might be. If choice is about “having,” it won’t make us happy. We are what we “be” not what we “have.”

* Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is in private practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments atMindMatters@DrGajdos.com or 610-388-2888. Past columns are posted towww.drgajdos.com.

 

About Kayta Gajdos

Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.

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