Maximizing vs satisficing and the paradox of choice

One of the sources of a heightened sense of anxiety in your life can be the paradox of choice. Too many choices lead to confusion and make it difficult to select and commit to one option with conviction. What could have happened if you selected a different option?

This is true across many domains in life, and it appears even more relevant in the current state of society. It is interesting to notice the paradox of choice in romantic life. One would be constrained by their geographic area and circle of real-life family and acquaintances to seek and find sexual and romantic partners. The pool of available and virtually available options has expanded significantly over the past years through social media and dating apps.

Therefore, it becomes increasingly challenging to select and commit to a romantic partner, a choice that would have been a much more common, unspoken reality until not that many years ago. With an overwhelming amount of choices comes the temptation to seek optimization instead of satisfaction. This can be particularly applicable to people who score high in personality trait conscientiousness, who are characterized by a heightened sense of duty and industriousness.

Quite evidently, according to the current scientific research, there are diminishing returns to optimizing any aspect of life, practical or conceptual it be. Particularly when the available options are too many to fully process for a human being, it is best to satisfice. This means exploring some of the options to get an idea of what they are like, before committing to the next best option.

One theory of *how much/for how long to explore *is the 37% rule. This concept states that it is best to explore the options for about 37% of the time—or explore about 37% of the available options if you know how many there are and do not have a time constraint—before committing to the next best alternative you find.

For example, as illustrated by the YouTube channel Veritasium in this video, if you want to get married within the next 10 years and feel overwhelmed by the number of options and do not know where to start, you can explore possible partners for about 4 years, before committing fully to the next best person you find compared to all the ones from the previous 4 years.

You may think this example is excessively robotic because it applies “hard” knowledge to a domain that is widely conceived as “soft” and spontaneous by society (i.e., dating/marriage), and that’s okay.

Barry Schwartz, a researcher in the domain of decision-making and satisfaction, posits that there is usually no “best” option in most areas of life. According to his research, maximizers often feel worse about their decisions, despite objectively doing better, due to continuously escalating standards and an inability to be pleasantly surprised.

Practically speaking, if you recognize yourself in the perfectionistic tendency to attempt over-optimization in some areas of your life and that causes a heightened sense of stress/unsatisfactoriness that you want to reduce, consider these three practical mindset changes:

1. Good enough is better than perfect and fully committing to a “good enough” option will increase your well-being because you take on responsibility and believe in it, without constantly re-assessing your choice to seek benefits maximization.
2. When choosing with an overwhelming amount of elements involved and possible options, consider how you can apply the 37% rule and commit to the best next alternative.
3. When offering products/services/choices to other people, limit the number of available options to limit the cognitive strain necessary for them to make a choice.