we are trapped F. Hirsch, Social Limits to Growth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976). See also T. Schelling, Micromotives and Macrobehavior (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978).
Chapter 3
Noble Prize–winning See D. Kahneman, “Objective Happiness,” in D. Kahneman, E. Diener, and N. Schwarz (eds.), Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology (New York: Russell Sage, 1999), pp. 3–25.
Men undergoing The colonoscopy study can be found in D. Redelmeier and D. Kahneman, “Patients’ Memories of Painful Medical Treatments: Real-Time and Retrospective Evaluations of Two Minimally Invasive Procedures,” Pain, 1996, 116, 3–8. Note that whereas there was a trend for patients who had the less unpleasant exam to be more compliant about follow-up exams, the difference between groups did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance.
Another illustration of See I. Simonson, “The Effect of Purchase Quantity and Time on Variety-Seeking Behavior,” Journal of Marketing Research, 1990, 27, 150–162; D. Read and G. Loewenstein, “Diversification Bias: Explaining the Discrepancy in Variety-Seeking between Combined and Separate Choices,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 1995, 1, 34–49. There are many other demonstrations of our inability to predict accurately how some event or other will make us feel. Some of them will be discussed in Chapter 8, on adaptation. For a review of these demonstrations and a discussion of the processes that underlie them, see G.Loewenstein and D. Schkade, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice? Predicting Future Feelings,” in D. Kahneman, E. Diener, and N. Schwarz (eds.), Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology (New York: Russell Sage, 1999), pp. 85–108.
And increasingly, we use For an interesting discussion of the potential (and pitfalls) of “e-commerce” to help us make wise choices, see M.S. Nadel, “The Consumer Product Selection Process in an Internet Age: Obstacles to Maximum Effectiveness and Policy Options,” Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, 2000, 14, 185–266. The numbers on catalog distribution come from this article.
As advertising professor J. Twitchell, Lead Us into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). The quote is on p. 53.
Yet several studies R.B. Zajonc, “Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1968, 9 (part 2), 1–27.
The Internet can On rating the raters one finds on the Internet, see the Nadel article.
The RAND Corporation On the accuracy of medical web sites, see T. Pugh, “Low Marks for Medical Web Sites,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 23, 2001, p. A3.
For a thorough discussion of strategies for information seeking and decision making in the modern, information-laden world, see J.W. Payne, J.R. Bettman, and E.J. Johnson, The Adaptive Decision Maker (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
Even if we can There are several very useful compendia of research on how we make decisions. See D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A. Tversky (eds.), Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982); D. Kahneman and A. Tversky (eds.), Choices, Values, and Frames (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, and D. Kahneman (eds.), Heuristics and Biases: The Psychology of Intuitive Judgment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). For a systematic overview of this area of research, see J. Baron, Thinking and Deciding (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Kahneman and Tversky discovered See A. Tversky and D. Kahneman, “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases,” Science, 1974, 185, 1124–1131.
There are many examples For a detailed discussion of many examples of human susceptibility to the availability heuristic, especially in social situations, see R. Nisbett and L. Ross, Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980).
How we assess risk P. Slovic, B. Fischoff, and S. Lichtenstein, “Facts Versus Fears: Understanding Perceived Risk,” in D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A. Tversky (eds.), Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 463–489.
The benefits of For a discussion of bandwagon effects in financial decision making and group wisdom in picking Academy Award winners, see J. Surowieski, “Manic Monday (and Other Popular Delusions),” New Yorker, March 26, 2001, p. 38.
But while diversity On “bandwagon effects” see T. Kuran and C. Sunstein, “Controlling Availability Cascades,” in C. Sunstein (ed.), Behavioral Law and Economics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp.374–397. See also T. Kuran, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); and M. Gladwell, The Tipping Point (Boston: Little Brown, 2000), for vivid examples of how small errors can turn into big ones.
One high-end catalog The bread-maker example is discussed in E. Shafir, I. Simenson, and A. Tversky, “Reason-Based Choice,” Cognition, 1993, 49, 11–36.
A more finely tuned J.E. Russo, “The Value of Unit Price Information,” Journal of Marketing Research, 1977, 14, 193–201.
Call this effect framing The classic paper on framing is D. Kahneman and A. Tversky, “Choices, Values, and Frames,” American Psychologist, 1984, 39, 341–350. Many other examples are collected in D. Kahneman and A. Tversky (eds.), Choices, Values, and Frames (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
In sum, just how well The relation between framing and subjective experience is well discussed by D. Frisch, “Reasons for Framing Effects,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 1993, 54, 399–429.
we give disproportionate weight A.J. Sanford, N. Fay, A. Stewart, and L. Moxey, “Perspective in Statements of Quantity, with Implications for Consumer Psychology,” Psychological Science, 2002, 13, 130–134.
Or suppose you are Many examples of phenomena discussed in this section can be found in articles collected in D. Kahneman and A. Tversky (eds.), Choices, Values, and Frames (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000). On the endowment effect, see D. Kahneman, J. Knetsch, and R. Thaler, “Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias.” On decisions to sell stock, see T. Odean, “Are Investors Reluctant to Realize Their Losses?” On sunk costs, see R. Thaler, “Mental Accounting Matters,” and R. Thaler, “Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer Choice.” On health insurance decisions, see E. Johnson, J. Hershey, J. Mezaros, and H. Kunreuther, “Framing, Probability Distortions, and Insurance Decisions.” On health plans and pension plans, see C. Camerer, “Prospect Theory in the Wild: Evidence from the Field” [the original research on this is in W. Samuelson and R. Zeckhauser, “Status Quo Bias in Decision Making,” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1988, 1, 7–59]. The car-buying example is found in C.W. Park, S.Y. Jun, and D.J. MacInnis, “Choosing What I Want Versus Rejecting What I Don’t Want: An Application of Decision Framing to Product Option Choice Decisions,” Journal of Marketing Research, 2000, 37, 187–202.
Is there anyone See J. Baron, Thinking and Deciding (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000) for a systematic and thorough discussion of the psychology of decision making.
Chapter 4
The alternative to maximizing The distinction between maximizers and satisficers originated with Herbert Simon in the 1950s. See his “Rational Choice and the Structure of the Environment,” Psychological Review, 1956, 63, 129–138; and Models of Man, Social and Rational (New York: Wiley, 1957).
We came up with a This research on maximizers and satisficers is described in detail in B. Schwartz, A. Ward, J. Monterosso, S. Lyubomirsky, K. White, and D.R. Lehman, “Maximizing versus Satisficing: Happiness Is a Matter of Choice,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002, 83, 1178–1197.
There’s another dimension See R. Frank, Choosing the Right Pond (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); F. Hirsch, Social Limits to Growth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976); and R. Frank and P. Cook, The Winner-Take-All Society (New York, Free Press, 1985).
Chapter 5
>
Over two centuries ago Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776. For a more recent, impassioned defense of freedom of choice in the market, see M. Friedman and R. Friedman, Free to Choose (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1980). For more critical views of the market and its miracles, see my The Battle for Human Nature (New York: W.W. Norton, 1986) and The Costs of Living (Philadelphia: XLibris, 2001).
An illustration of The story about the political scientists appears in R. Kuttner, Everything for Sale (New York: Knopf, 1996).
Every choice we make On choice and autonomy, see R.E. Lane, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 231–234. See also Gerald Dworkin, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
In the 1960s The research literature on learned helplessness is vast. For excellent summary discussions of the phenomenon and its consequences, see M.E.P. Seligman, Helplessness: On Depression, Development, and Death (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1975), and C. Peterson, S.F. Maier, and M.E.P. Seligman, Learned Helplessness: A Theory for the Age of Personal Control (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
however, pollster Louis Harris L. Harris, Inside America (New York: Random House, 1987). This work is discussed in Lane, p. 29.
Here is an example E. Diener, R.A. Emmons, R.J. Larson, and S. Griffin, “The Satisfaction with Life Scale,” Journal of Personality Assessment, 1985, 49, 71–75.
And one of the things A central figure in the study of happiness is psychologist Ed Diener. For a sample of Diener’s recent work on the topic, see E. Diener, “Subjective Well-Being: The Science of Happiness and a Proposal for a National Index,” American Psychologist, 2000, 55, 34–43; E. Diener, M. Diener, and C. Diener, “Factors Predicting the Subjective Well-Being of Nations,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1995, 69, 851–864; E. Diener and E.M. Suh (eds.), Subjective Well-Being Across Cultures (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001); and E. Diener, E.M. Suh, R.E. Lucas, and H.L. Smith, “Subjective Well-Being: Three Decades of Progress,” Psychological Bulletin, 1999, 125, 276–302. See also S. Lyubomirsky, “Why Are Some People Happier Than Others?” American Psychologist, 2001, 56, 239–249.
You find as many For a wealth of information on differences in happiness across nations and across time, see R. Inglehart, Modernization and Post-modernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Changes in Societies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997); R.E. Lane, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000); and D. G. Myers, The American Paradox (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000).
But, as Lane R.E. Lane, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies, Chapter 9. The quote is from p. 165.
but we spend less time See also R.D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000) for a detailed account of the decreased social connectedness of modern American life along with some efforts to figure out its causes.
As Lane writes R.E. Lane (The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies) reviews the evidence for the importance of close social relations in Chapters 5 and 6. The quote is from p. 108.
Who has this kind of time? I write about the time problem in The Costs of Living: How Market Freedom Erodes the Best Things in Life (Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2001). Sociologist Arlie Hochschild writes brilliantly about it in The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work (New York: Metropolitan, 1997).
Economist and historian A.O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970).
These are what Cass Sunstein C.R. Sunstein and E. Ullmann-Margalit, “Second-Order Decisions,” in C.R. Sunstein (ed.), Behavioral Law and Economics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 187–208.
At the turn of J. von Uexkull, “A Stroll Through the Worlds of Animals and Men,” in C.H. Schiller (ed.), Instinctive behavior (New York: International Universities Press, 1954), pp. 3–59. The quote is on page 26.
But powerful evidence K. Berridge, “Pleasure, Pain, Desire, and Dread: Hidden Core Processes of Emotion,” in D. Kahneman, E. Diener, and N. Schwarz (eds.), Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999), pp. 525–557.
Chapter 6
The psychology of trade-offs M.F. Luce, J.R. Bettman, and J.W. Payne, Trade-Off Difficulty: Determinants and Consequences of Consumer Decisions. Monographs of the Journal of Consumer Research series, Volume 1, Spring, 2001.
being forced to confront For illuminating discussions of how people handle trade-offs when they make choices, see A. Tversky, “Elimination by Aspects: A Theory of Choice,” Psychological Review, 1972, 79, 281–299; and J.W. Payne, J.R. Bettman, and E.J. Johnson, The Adaptive Decision Maker (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
When researchers asked A. Tversky and E. Shafir, “Choice under Conflict: The Dynamics of Deferred Decision,” Psychological Science, 1992, 3, 358–361.
doctors were presented D.A. Redelmeier and E. Shafir, “Medical Decision Making in Situations that Offer Multiple Alternatives,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 1995, 273, 302–305.
Consider this scenario E. Shafir, I. Simenson, and A. Tversky, “Reason-Based Choice,” Cognition, 1993, 49, 11–36.
This was confirmed by L. Brenner, Y. Rottenstreich, and S. Sood, “Comparison, Grouping, and Preference,” Psychological Science, 1999, 10, 225–229.
We just don’t want to B.E. Kahn and J. Baron, “An Exploratory Study of Choice Rules Favored for High-Stakes Decisions,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 1995, 4, 305–328.
It also interferes with M.F. Luce, J.R. Bettman, and J.W. Payne, Trade-Off Difficulty: Determinants and Consequences of Consumer Decisions. Monographs of the Journal of Consumer Research series, Volume 1, Spring, 2001. For evidence on the role of positive emotion in medical decision making, see A.M. Isen, A.S. Rosenzweig, and M.J. Young, “The Influence of Positive Affect on Clinical Problem Solving,” Medical Decision Making, 1991, 11, 221–227. For evidence of the positive contribution to decision making in general made by positive emotion, see A.M. Isen, “Positive Affect and Decision Making,” in M. Lewis and J. Haviland (eds.), Handbook of Emotion (New York: Guilford Press, 1993), pp. 261–277; and B.E. Fredrickson, “What Good Are Positive Emotions?” Review of General Psychology, 1998, 2, 300–319.
in which two sets of participants S. Iyengar and M. Lepper, “When Choice Is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000, 79, 995–1006.
Even decisions as trivial For a discussion of self-blame and self-esteem, see B. Weiner, “An Attributional Theory of Achievement Motivation and Emotion,” Psychological Review, 1985, 92, 548–573.
their importance to the verbalizer The jam study is from T.D. Wilson and J.S. Schooler, “Thinking Too Much: Introspection Can Reduce the Quality of Preferences and Decisions,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1991, 60, 181–192. The art poster study is from T.D. Wilson, D.J. Lisle, J.S. Schooler, S.D. Hodges, K.J. Klaren, and S.J. LaFleur, “Introspecting About Reasons Can Reduce Post-Choice Satisfaction,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1993, 19, 331–339. The dating study is from T.D. Wilson and D. Kraft, “Why Do I Love Thee? Effects of Repeated Introspections About a Dating Relationship on Attitudes Toward the Relationship,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1993, 19, 409–418. Also see T.D. Wilson, D.S. Dunn, J.A. Bybee, D.B. Hyman, and J.A. Rotundo, “Effects of Analyzing Reasons on Attitude-Behavior Consistency,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1984, 47, 5–16. Also see J. McMackin and P. Slovic, “When Does Explicit Justification Impair Decision Making?” Applied Cognitive Psychology, 2000, 14, 527–541. In this paper, the authors try to distinguish the kinds of decisions that are improved by giving reasons from the kinds of decisions that are impaired by giving reasons.
The anguish and inertia A. Robbins and A. Wilner, Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your T
wenties (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2001).
as one young respondent M. Daum, My Misspent Youth (New York: Grove/Atlantic, 2001). The quote appears in R. Marin, “Is This the Face of a Midlife Crisis?” New York Times, June 24, 2001, Section 9, pp. 1–2.
acceptance or rejection For some interesting evidence and discussion suggesting that basic “accept-reject,” judgments have deep evolutionary and biological roots, see A. Damasio, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1994); and R.B. Zajonc, “On the Primacy of Affect,” American Psychologist, 1984, 39, 117–123.
As psychologist Susan Sugarman S. Sugarman, “Choice and Freedom: Reflections and Observations Based Upon Human Development,” [unpublished manuscript, 1999].
Yes, but at a price D.T. Gilbert and J.E. Ebert, “Decisions and Revisions: The Affective Forecasting of Changeable Outcomes,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002, 82, 503–514.
Chapter 7
Recall that when B. Schwartz, A. Ward, J. Monterosso, S. Lyubomirsky, K. White, and D.R. Lehman, “Maximizing Versus Satisficing: Happiness Is a Matter of Choice,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002, 83, 1178–1197.
some circumstances are more likely D. Kahneman and A. Tversky, “The Simulation Heuristic,” in D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A. Tversky (eds.), Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
However, recent evidence T. Gilovich and V.H. Medvec, “The Experience of Regret: What, When, and Why,” Psychological Review, 1995, 102, 379–395.
A second factor D. Kahneman and A. Tversky, “The Simulation Heuristic,” in D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, and A. Tversky (eds.), Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
Related to this “nearness” V.H. Medvec, S.F. Madley, and T. Gilovich, “When Less Is More: Counterfactual Thinking and Satisfaction Among Olympic Athletes,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1995, 69, 603–610.
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