When Companies Try To Guess

About 60% Of The People Stopped When We Had 24 Jams On Display And Then At The Times When We Had 6 Different Flavors Of Jam Out On Display Only 40% Of The People Actually Stopped, So More People Were Clearly Attracted To The Larger Varieties Of Options, But Then When It Came Down To Buying, So The Second Thing We Looked At Is In What Case Were People More Likely To Buy A Jar Of Jam. What We Found Was That Of The People Who Stopped When There Were 24 Different Flavors Of Jam Out On Display Only 3% Of Them Actually Bought A Jar Of Jam Whereas Of The People Who Stopped When There Were 6 Different Flavors Of Jam 30% Of Them Actually Bought A Jar Of Jam.

In Fact, Even In That Store Draeger's They Had 348 Different Kinds Of Jam Actually In The Jam Aisle. And What We Found Over About, Say, 10 Years Of Research Is That As The Number Of Choices Actually Increase People Are Less Likely To Make A Choice And Sometimes They Do This Even When It's Really Bad For Them.

I Put Out A Good 10 Different Types Of Drinks For Them And They Just Said, "oh, Okay, So It's Just One Choice." One Choice? I Gave You Coke, Pepsi, Ginger Ale, Sprite. They Saw That As One Choice. Now Why Was That One Choice? Because They Felt, Well, It Was Just All Soda.

If You Have The Feeling Of Choice, If You Feel Free, You Will Be Better Off. And When I Say Better Off I Mean That If People Feel They Have Control Over Their Lives, They Call In For Fewer Sick Days From Work. They Have A Lesser Probability Of Having A Heart Attack Or Stroke. They Live Longer. They're Happier.

I Think I Was Always Informally Thinking About Choice From When I Was A Very Young Child Because I Was Born To Sikh Immigrant Parents, So I Was Constantly Going Back And Forth Between A Sikh Household And An American Outside World, So I Was Going Back And Forth Between A Very Traditional Sikh Home In Which You Had To Follow The Five K's.