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Too Many Options

MJG
edited July 2012 in Off-Topic
Hi Guys,

Our decision-making capability is limited; it is easily overwhelmed and compromised by having too many options.

Behavioral researcher Dan Ariely makes that specific point in an entertaining video on the TED Talks network.

Here is a Link to the presentation recorded a few years ago:



Try it and enjoy the 18 minute talk. We are all susceptible to the lure of the lazy default option. So always have your skeptical screening tools at the ready.

Ariely has many other videos that illustrate our foibles in the decision-making process. You might want to try them also.

We seem to consistently succumb to meaningless directives. It reminds me of one of many Blonde jokes:

A blonde spies a letter lying on her doormat. It says on the envelope, "DO NOT BEND." She spends the next 2 hours trying to figure out how to pick it up.

Keep smiling.

Best Regards.

Comments

  • catch22catch22
    Ah, TED. What an excellent association of knowledge. I wish I had enough time to take advantage of the many topics discussed.
    As to the options available to we investors today; I willing accept the choices, versus the limitations decades ago.
    Just because more choices exist, doesn't make them appropriate for everyone, eh? The normal investigation of self, and the investment vehicle, remains mandatory.
    Thank you for the link.
    Regards,
    Catch
  • Kaspa
    I have not had a chance to go through the talk yet, but here are a couple of media pieces that have some overlap.
    1. Saw a documentary about Costco few days back (I think on CNBC). They present just one option in most of their categories for exactly the same reason. Just one type of Heinz ketchup!
    2. I am half-way reading through a book "Thinking fast and slow" by Daniel Kahneman, who was a recipient of Nobel prize in Economic Sciences. It is a wonderful book about how our mind works and the biases we introduce in our impressions/decisions without even being aware of them.
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