Too Many Choices

For those of you who have not read the article by John Tierney in the New York Times Magazine of August 24, 2011 called, “To Choose Is to Loose.” I would like to summarize some of the main points as I feel it is one of the more important topics I have seen in a long time. The caption under the title reads, “the very act of making decisions depletes our ability to make them well. So how do we navigate a world of endless choices?”

We are not aware during our daily activities of how many choices encumber our brains non-stop. For instance, we start the day with shower or bath, plaid or stripped, regular or decaf, whole eggs or whites only, heels or flats, taxi or subway. Then we continue throughout the day with staple or paperclip, buy now or wait for sale, speak up or keep quiet, paper or plastic, wash or dry-clean, chocolates or flowers, book or magazine, strength training or cardio, keep driving or ask for directions, cash or credit, go out or stay home. The list can go on ad infinitum—it is just a sample of how bombarded we are with constant decision making.

What happens is that our brains get tired. Tierney calls it decision fatigue which explains why ordinarily sensible people buy junk food, splurge on clothes, and let the salesperson talk them into an unneeded upgrade. It is different from physical fatigue, because we’re not aware that our brain is tired and our brain begins to look for short cuts either by acting impulsively, not thinking through consequences, or by saving energy and doing nothing, avoiding making any decision, which could also lead to unintended consequences.

Psychologist Ray F. Baumeister coined the term “ego depletion.” The more energy you use to avoid temptation (such as ordering dessert) the less energy you will have to avoid other temptations, so you may end up eating half that box of chocolates. One of the examples given is registering for wedding gifts—after deciding on flatware, china, glasses, table linens, towels, and sheets, the exhausted couple just pick whatever is displayed, stop making choices, and start asking the salesperson, “What do you suggest?”

The more options—whether buying a car or ordering a suit—the quicker fatigue sets in and so one chooses the default option.

In an experiment involving the timing of paroles given or refused, 1100 decisions were analyzed over the course of a year. Prisoners who appeared in front of the judges early in the morning received parole 70% of the time, while those who appeared later in the day were paroled less than 10% of the time. The fatigued judges chose the default option: remain in jail.

What experimenters tried to do next was to see whether the brain can be made to function even when fatigued, and the answer was glucose. Glucose could reverse the brain’s propensity to stop deciding and give it a burst of energy. This explains the dieter’s problem with willpower. We start off refusing the doughnut for breakfast, but by dinner have no willpower left for the chocolate cake. The Catch-22 is that in order not to eat, the dieter needs willpower, but in order to have willpower, the dieter needs to eat. Baumeister showed that in order to start making good choices again once depleted, people need “a sugary pick-me-up,” but not a beverage containing a diet sweetener.

The prisoners who normally would have that 10% chance of getting paroled by appearing in the afternoon in front of tired judges were taken in front of judges who had just eaten and got approved 60% of the time. I personally don’t know how much choice prisoners have in the timing of their appearances. I’m guessing not much, but according to this research, the judges should find the opportunity to eat a snack before their brains start turning off.

People with the best self-control are the ones who structure their lives so as to conserve willpower. They don’t schedule back-to-back meetings, avoid all-you-can-eat buffets, and instead of having to decide whether to exercise every morning, they schedule it in advance. Even the wisest people won’t make good choices when their glucose is low.

So don’t make decisions late in the day nor on an empty stomach. The best decision makers, Baumeister says, are the ones who know when not to trust themselves. We all now have a good excuse for the piece of chocolate mid-afternoon.