[QUOTE="frannkzappa"]
[QUOTE="TopTierHustler"]
It's been proven by multiple studies; the more choice somebody has in life, the less happy they are, and the countries with the biggest governments have the happiest people.
i.e. sweden.
TopTierHustler
these studies are????
BAMM!!!!Let's knock it up a notch!!!
It's counter intuitive, but yeah,
Both of those studies are severely flawed.
First, the first one focuses on only one category of choice. There are many kinds of choices that people wish they had; they range from choices in identity to lifestyle choices, neither of which are given any attention in either article. All of this is mostly about consumer choices. (The second study you've provided has the same problem.)
Second, his evidence for the negative impact of opportunity costs is shaky. How does he know that it is the availability of choices that led to the participants assigning lower dollar values? He merely engages in speculation to "prove" his point.
Third, regarding the effect of regret, the author fails to recognize that, even if a limited number of options precludes regret (which isn't always true), he's greatly underestimating the disappointment inherent in having fewer choices. And even if it were true that regret that indirectly arises from having more choices is much more significant than disappointment because of having fewer, all it really shows is that people who have a lot of good choices but make unwise choices tend to be unhappy. In other words, it's most likely the agent's choice, not availability of choices, that leads to unhappiness.
Forth, his point about adaptation is flawed. That we lose enjoyment in things as we get used to them has nothing to do with how the availability of choice causes unhappiness. Moreover, his reasoning there suffers from the same flaws that are in his point about regret.
Fifth, his point about high expectations is only marginally better. It makes sense to say that "too-muchness" can be overwhelming. However, I think it's hasty to conclude that this is necessarily because of the greater availability of choices. The study he cites doesn't preclude the possibility that it is indecisiveness that is the underlying factor in being overwhelmed by choices. Moreover, his thought experiment is inconclusive and non-generalizable. And all it shows is that high expectations can lead to disappointment. He does nothing to show that it is precisely the greater availability of choices that could lead to his disappointment. He merely asserts that the hypothetical situation he posits is reasonable without telling why.
Finally, his assertion about how depression is linked to the greater availability of choices is flawed for the same reason his point about regret is flawed. Again, all he's showing is that people who have many choices but are disappointed by their choices tend to be unhappy. That has nothing to do with the mere fact that they have more choices. He's also arbitrarily assuming that people who have many choices necessarily experience great unhappiness because of their choices. Even if that weren't an arbitrary assumption, though, he'd still be missing the point.
As for the second study, it doesn't rule out the possibility that those people with more cable channels are more unhappy because, in trying to compensate with their unhappiness, they go full-out on wasteful and hedonistic activities like watching TV.
tl;dr: Correlation=/=causation, not all thought experiments are conclusive, and making arbitrary assumptions during research is bad.
(And yes, I wrote this post out of pure boredom.)
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