Decisions that are complicated but trivial, such as picking an
elective course in college, cause an inordinate amount of wasted time
and unhappiness, a study shows.
In one experiment, 106 participants in
an online labor market made real-world choices about which tasks they
would accept for pay. They could either change their decision later or
not (making the original choice "unimportant" or "important"). The
decisions involved a choice either between two jobs, with one clearly
more pleasant and remunerative, or among four, with many pluses and
minuses.
The workers dispatched the easy
decisions quickly, whether they were reversible or not, and they spent
only slightly more time on the hard, nonreversible decisions. But they
devoted twice as much time to the hard, unimportant decisions, and the
more time they spent, the less happy they were.
This pattern of overthinking minor
choices—the researchers call it "decision quicksand"—was repeated in
scenarios involving airline flights and course selection.
"Decision Quicksand: How Trivial Choices Suck Us In," Aner Sela and Jonah Berger, Journal of Consumer Research (forthcoming)
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