When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Muchof a Good Thing?
Sheena S. Iyengar

Mark R. Lepper

Columbia University

Stanford University

Current psychological theory and research affirm the positive affective and motivational consequences of
having personal choice. These findings have led to the popular notion that the more choice, thebetter--that the human ability to manage, and the human desire for, choice is unlimited. Findings from 3
experimental studies starkly challenge this implicit assumption that having more choices is necessarily
more intrinsically motivating than having fewer. These experiments, which were conducted in both field
and laboratory settings, show that people are more likely to purchase gourmet jams or chocolates or toundertake optional class essay assignments when offered a limited array of 6 choices rather than a more
extensive array of 24 or 30 choices. Moreover, participants actually reported greater subsequentsatisfaction with their selections and wrote better essays when their original set of options had been
limited. Implications for future research are discussed.

Ne quid nimis. (In all things moderation.)--Publius Terentius Afer (Terence), c. 171 B.C.

On the face of it, this supposition seems well supported bydecades of psychological theory and research that has repeatedly
demonstrated, across many domains, a link between the provisionof choice and increases in intrinsic motivation, perceived control,task performance, and life satisfaction (Deci, 1975, 1981; Deci &Ryan, 1985; Glass & Singer, 1972a, 1972b; Langer & Rodin,
1976; Rotter, 1966; Schulz & Hanusa, 1978; Taylor, 1989; Taylor& Brown, 1988). In a typical laboratory study, the intrinsic motivation of participants is compared across two conditions: one inwhich participants are given a choice among half a dozen possible
activities, and a second in which participants are told by anexperimenter which specific activity to undertake (Zuckerman,
Porac, Lathin, Smith & Deci, 1978). The recurring empiricalfinding from these studies is that the provision of choice increases
intrinsic motivation and enhances performance on a variety oftasks.
Moreover, the positive consequences of choice are often apparent even in contexts where the choice itself is trivial or incidental(Cordova & Lepper, 1996; Dember, Galinsky, & Warm, 1992;
S w a n n & Pittman, 1977). Indeed, many important theories insocial psychology, including attribution theory (e.g., Kelley, 1967,1973), dissonance theory (e.g., Collins & Hoyt, 1972; Cooper &Fazio, 1984; Linder, Cooper, & Jones, 1967), and reactance theory(e.g., Brehm, 1966), all presume that even purely illusory perceptions of choice will have powerful effects (Langer, 1975; Lefcourt,
1973; Lewin, 1952).
Although prior research has made a compelling case for thepsychological benefits of the provision of choice, there remainsome potential limitations to this literature. Consider one seemingly trivial, yet potentially important, methodological characteristic of prior studies: that the number of options presented in

It is a common supposition in modern society that the morechoices, the better--that the human ability to manage, and thehuman desire for, choice is infinite. From classic economic theories of free enterprise, to mundane marketing practices that provide
customers with entire aisles devoted to potato chips or soft drinks,
to important life decisions in which people contemplate alternative
career options or multiple investment opportunities, this belief
pervades our institutions, norms, and customs. Ice cream parlors
compete to offer the most flavors; major fast-food chains urge us
to "Have it o u r way."

Sheena S. Iyengar, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University;
Mark R. Lepper, Department of Psychology, Stanford University.
We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation and assistance of Draeger's
Grocery Store located in Menlo Park, California, for generously offering
their store as a field site for conducting Study 1. Similarly, Study 2 could
not have occurred without the cooperation and support of Claude Steele atStanford University who generously allowed his introductory social psychology course to be used as a forum for conducting this field experiment.
Further, we would like to thank the numerous graduate students in the
Department of Psychology at Stanford University and undergraduate research assistants who generously dedicated their time and effort to help
conduct these studies.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sheena
S. Iyengar, Columbia University, Graduate School of Business, Uris HallRoom 714, 3022 Broadway, New York, New York 10027-6902, or to MarkR. Lepper, Department of Psychology, Jordan Hall-Building 420, Stanford
University, Stanford, California 94305-2130. Electronic mail may be sent
to ss957@columbia.edu or lepper@psych.stanford.edu.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2000, Vol. 79, No. 6, 995-1006
Copyright 2000 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0022-3514/00/$5.00
DOI: 10.1037//0022-3514.79.6.995

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previous experiments was characteristically small, typically between two and six alternatives. It would appear, then, that what
prior research has actually shown is that choice among relatively
limited alternatives is more beneficial than no choice at all. Presumably, of course, constraints on the number of options offered inpast choice studies were imposed primarily for the sake of convenience; however, real-world situations often provide more than alimited selection, sometimes even an overwhelming number of
options. What happens when the range of alternatives becomeslarger and the differences among options become relatively small?
Certainly, there are cases when even a vast array of choices may
still have beneficial effects. Imagine a group of people who arrive
at a new restaurant, for example, all hoping to order their personalfavorite dishes. Obviously, the more items offered on the menu,
the more satisfied these customers will be, on average. Moregenerally, in preference-matching contexts, in which people enter
hoping to find some particular product or service they alreadyknow themselves to prefer, larger numbers of options should
increase the likelihood that they will be successful in their search.
On the other hand, a growing body of research also suggests thatpeople can have difficulty managing complex choices. To begin
with, research has shown that as the attractiveness of alternatives
rises, individuals experience conflict and as a result tend to defer
decision, search for new alternatives, choose the default option, or
simply opt not to choose (Dhar, 1997; Shafir, Simonson, & Tversky, 1993; Shafir & Tversky, 1992). Furthermore, consumer research suggests that as both the number of options and the information about options increases, people tend to consider fewer
choices and to process a smaller fraction of the overall information
available regarding their choices (Hauser & Wernerfelt, 1990).
In fact, studies show that the selection, evaluation, and integration of information are all clearly affected by the available numberof options; this suggests that, as the complexity of making choices
rises, people tend to simplify their decision-making processes by
relying on simple heuristics (Payne, 1982; Payne, Bettman, &Johnson, 1988, 1993; Timmermans, 1993; Wright, 1975). For
instance, a comparison of the decision strategies of people presented with three, six, or nine alternatives revealed that 21% used
an elimination strategy in the case of three options, 31% used anelimination strategy in the case of six options, and 77% used anelimination strategy when there were nine options (Timmermans,
1993). The increase in the percentage of participants who used anelimination strategy as the number of alternatives grew was also
accompanied by a decrease in the percentage of information used.
This sharp decrease in the number of attributes considered asproblem complexity increases suggests that information overload
may produce a change to a noncompensatory but more efficientdecision rule.
The three studies presented in this article, therefore, examine forthe first time the possibility that there may be differential motivational consequences of encountering contexts that offer a limited(i.e., psychologically manageable), versus an extensive (i.e., psychologically excessive), number of choices. Specifically, thechoice overload hypothesis underlying these studies is that, although the provision of extensive choices may sometimes still beseen as initially desirable, it may also prove unexpectedly demotivating in the end.
In these studies, limited-choice conditions were operationalized
as contexts that offered roughly the same number of options(approximately six) as used in past research (e.g., Zuckerman etal., 1978). In comparison, extensive-choice conditions were operationalized as contexts in which participants would have somereasonably large, but not ecologically unusual, number of options.
In addition, to provide a clear test of the choice overload
hypothesis, several additional methodological considerations
seemed important. On the one hand, to minimize the likelihood of
simple preference matching, care was taken to select contexts inwhich most participants would not already have strong specificpreferences. On the other hand, to minimize the potential importance of effortful information search, care was also taken to selecttasks for which "right" and "wrong" choices would be subjective,
so that the effort involved in making a choice would be largely afunction of personal preferences. Finally, across experiments, wesought to examine this hypothesis in both field and laboratory
settings. Using these criteria, then, the present studies tested the
hypothesis that having a limited and more manageable set of
choices may be more intrinsically motivating than having an
overly extensive set of choices.
Study 1In this first field experiment, consumers shopping at an upscale
grocery store encountered a tasting booth that displayed either alimited (6) or an extensive (24) selection of different flavors ofjam. The two dependent measures of customers' motivation were
their initial attraction to the tasting booth and their subsequentpurchasing behavior.

MethodParticipants and Experimental Site
Study 1 involved a field experiment that examined the motivational
consequences of limited versus extensive choice in an upscale grocery
store (Draeger's Supermarket) located in Menlo Park, California. This
grocery store is of particular interest because its salient distinguishingfeature is the extraordinary selection it offers, especially when comparedwith large grocery chains. For instance, Draeger's offers roughly 250
different varieties of mustard, 75 different varieties of olive oil, and over
300 varieties of jam. In addition, because of the regular presence of tastingbooths at this store, shoppers are frequently offered sample tastes of theenormous array of available products. As a result, this store provided aparticularly conducive environment in which a naturalistic experiment thatused tasting booths could be conducted.
On two consecutive Saturdays, neither of which fell on a long holiday
weekend, a tasting booth was set up inside the grocery store. Over thecourse of these two 5-hr experimental periods, the behavior of approximately 754 shoppers was observed. Among the 386 customers present in
the store during the hours when the extensive-choice booth was displayed,
only 242 actually encountered the display. Among the 368 customers
present in the store during the hours when the limited-choice booth wasdisplayed, only 260 actually encountered the display. By observation, thecustomers who stopped at the booth were typically middle-aged Caucasians; approximately 62% of these customers were women and 38% weremen.

Product Selection
Exotic jams. Before the study, the number of brands and selections
within a number of product categories were carefully catalogued. On thebasis of the following criteria, the product selected as the experimental

WHEN CHOICE IS DEMOTIVATING
stimulus was Wilkin & Sons (Purveyors to Her Majesty the Queen) jams.
To control for potential differences that might arise from different types of
packaging or advertising, it was necessary to find one brand for which there
was a sufficiently large variety to constitute an extensive-choice condition.
(In total, Wilkin & Sons has 28 varieties of jams.) In addition, carefulattention was given to selecting a product with which most consumers
would be familiar, yet not so familiar that preferences would already be
ftrmiy established. Hence, to ensure that potential customers would not justreach for the more traditional flavors such as strawberry and raspberry,these common flavors were removed from the set of 28, leaving a choice
set of 24 more exotic flavors. Finally, because the dependent measure
involved purchasing behavior, a relatively inexpensive product needed to
be chosen. The price of Wilkin & Sons jams ranged from 4 to 6 dollars.
Jam preferences survey. To ensure that the limited-choice set consistedof neither the most preferred nor the least preferred jam flavors, a preliminary survey of 30 Stanford undergraduates examined individual preferences for the 24 flavors of jam. These students were provided a list of
the 24 exotic jam flavors and were asked, "Please read the following list ofjams. Put a star next to the two best-sounding jams, in your opinion. Put acheck mark next to two good but not excellent-sounding jams, and an X
next to the two worst sounding jams." On the basis of this preliminary
survey, kiwi and peach jams were selected to represent the two most
preferred jams, black cherry and three-fruits marmalade were selected torepresent the moderately tasty jams, and lemon curd and red currant wereselected to represent the least preferred jams.

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subsequent purchase o f the displayed product. As noted, more
w o m e n than m e n stopped at the booth; however, there were no
gender differences by condition, either for initial attraction or for
subsequent purchasing behavior.

Initial Attractiveness o f Selections
To what extent does having extensive choice initially s e e mdesirable? O f the 242 customers w h o passed the extensiveselection display o f jams, 60% (145) actually stopped at the booth.
In contrast, o f the 260 customers w h o passed the limited-selection
display o f jams, only 40% (104) stopped. Thus, consumers w h oencountered the extensive-choice condition were more attracted tothe booth than consumers e x p o s e d to the limited-choice condition,suggesting that the variety provided in the extensive-choice condition was initially more attractive, 9(2(1, N = 502) = 19.89, p <.001.1
One might imagine that consumers w h o encountered 24 different j a m s would sample more flavors than would those w h o encountered 6 different varieties. In fact, however, there were no
significant differences, F(1, 245) = 0.83, ns; consumers in theextensive-choice condition sampled an average o f 1.50 j a m s(range = 1-2), whereas consumers in the limited-choice condition
sampled an average o f 1.38 j a m s (range = 1-2).

Procedure
Two research assistants, dressed as store employees, invited passing
customers to "come try our Wilkin and Sons jams." Shoppers encountered
one of two displays. On the table were either 6 (limited-choice condition)or 24 (extensive-choice condition) different jams. On each of two Saturdays, the displays were rotated hourly; the hours of the displays werecounterbalanced across days to minimize any day or time-of-day effects.
Initial testing. Consumers were allowed to taste as many jams as they
wished. All consumers who approached the table received a coupon for a$1-discount off the purchase of any Wilkin & Sons jam. Afterwards, any
shoppers who wished to purchase the jam needed to go to the relevant jam
shelf, select the jam of their choice, and then purchase the item at thestore's main cash registers. As a result, regardless of the tasting-boothdisplay encountered by each customer, all potential buyers of Wilkin &Sons products necessarily encountered the entire display of flavors.
An inconspicuous observer recorded the number of customers who
approached the table, as well as the number of passers-by who did not stop.
A second observer, also unobtrusive, made educated guesses about theethnicity, age, and gender of each customer who did stop at the tastingbooth.
In addition, a random sample of solicitations was tape-recorded and later
presented to two independent raters, unaware of both the conditions andhypotheses of the study, who rated each solicitation on a 1-5 Likert scaleof "friendliness" ranging from not at all friendly to very friendly. Overall,
the average friendliness score was high (M = 4.5), and the correlation
between the raters was high, r = .90, p < .0001. Subsequent analyses onthese scores showed that the solicitations did not vary according to condition, F(1, 99) = .86, ns.
Subsequent purchasing. On the bottom left-hand comer of each discount coupon was a code indicating the condition assignment and genderof each consumer. Other numbers and letters surrounded these codes tolead customers to believe that the code represented a coupon scan number.
Coupons could be redeemed over a period of 1 week.

Results
The central aim o f Study 1 was to examine w h e t h e r the n u m b e ro f options displayed affected c o n s u m e r s ' initial attraction to or

Subsequent Purchasing Behavior
Is the initial attractiveness o f extensive choice also reflected insubsequent purchasing behavior? Our findings suggest not: Nearly
30% (31) o f the consumers in the limited-choice condition subsequently purchased a j a r o f Wilkin & Sons jam; in contrast, only 3%(4) o f the consumers in the extensive-choice condition did so, X2(1,N = 249) = 32.34, p < .0001. Thus, consumers initially e x p o s e d
to limited choices proved considerably more likely to purchase theproduct than consumers w h o had initially encountered a muchlarger set o f options.

Discussion
These findings are striking. Certainly, they appear to challenge
a fundamental assumption underlying classic psychological theories o f h u m a n motivation and economic theories o f rationalc h o i c e - - t h a t having more, rather than fewer, choices is necessarily
more desirable and intrinsically motivating. The findings from thisstudy show that an extensive array o f options can at first seem
highly appealing to consumers, yet can reduce their subsequent
motivation to purchase the product. Even though consumers presumably shop at this particular store in part because o f the large
number o f selections available, having "too m u c h " choice seems
nonetheless to have h a m p e r e d their later motivation to buy.
There are, however, several potential limitations to this initial
field experiment. To begin with, it is possible that consumers in thelimited-choice condition believed that there was something special
about the specific six j a m s displayed, especially after they b e c a m e

In keeping with current guidelines, because the cell sizes in the present
studies were substantial (Siegel, 1956) and because there were more than 5times as many subjects as there were ceils (Delucchi, 1983), it was notdeemed necessary to perform a correction for continuity.

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aware o f the multitude o f other options available on the shelf. Sucha belief could have made the limited-choice consumers more prone
to purchase jam. Consequently, it is worth considering w h e t h e r thepattern o f results would be altered if the limited-choice condition
were operationalized such that participants were not aware o f themultitude o f other options potentially available.
In addition, the contrasting displays o f j a m may have invited
motivationally differing c o n s u m e r groups. Although the displayo f 24 j a m s may have aroused the curiosity o f otherwise uninterested passers-by, the display o f 6 jams may have appealed to store
customers w h o were more serious about the purchasing o f jam. To
rule out this possibility, it was necessary to examine the motivational consequences o f limited versus extensive choices with asample o f participants w h o were not given the opportunity to
self-select their condition assignment.
Finally, since consumers in both conditions sampled no m o r ethan two j a m flavors, it is possible that the consumers in theextensive-choice condition felt that they did not have sufficient
time to determine their preferences. Although consumers in bothconditions were allowed the f r e e d o m to peruse and to sample as
many o f the displayed flavors as they wished, social pressure ortime constraints may have prevented them from taking full advantage o f this opportunity. Thus, one might question whether theobtained differences in motivation would be eliminated if participants in both conditions were given the opportunity to peruse theiroptions in an unconstrained, nonpublic context.
Study 2 endeavored to address these concerns and to generalize
the findings from Study 1 to an educational setting, in whichmeasures o f actual performance, as well as choice, could beobserved. Thus, in Study 2, participants in the limited-choice
condition were not aware o f any options b e y o n d those in thelimited-choice set. Similarly, careful attention was given to choosing a task that enabled participants to spend as much time as they
wished in perusing their choices. Moreover, unlike Study 1,
Study 2 e m p l o y e d a yoked design; the limited-choice set was
rotated such that for every item encountered by an extensivechoice participant, there was a limited-choice participant w h o had
encountered the same item.
Study 2
In Study 2, students in an introductory social psychology classwere given the opportunity to write a two-page essay as an extracredit assignment. Students were given either 6 or 30 potential
essay topics on which they could choose to write. Intrinsic motivation was assessed by comparing the percentage o f students w h ocompleted the assignment across the two conditions and the quality o f the essays written in each condition.

Methodstudents ultimately dropped the class and were therefore excluded from theanalysis.

Procedures
As part of the course, all students were required to watch the movie,"Twelve Angry Men." Related to this requirement, an extra-credit assignment was offered, and it was the administration of this extra-credit opportunity that provided the context for a naturalistic experiment.
Before Thanksgiving week, extra-credit assignments were distributed tothe students. All assignments included the following instructions:Instead of having section next week, all students will be required towatch a movie being shown in room 40 on Monday, November 25,
between 7-9 PM. After watching the movie, you can obtain two extra
credit points on your next midterm examination by writing a response
paper to the movie. The following is a list of possible questions you
can write about. Papers should be approximately one to two pages
typed, double spaced, and are due Tuesday, December 3, in class. If
you choose to do this assignment, you must circle the paper topic andattach this page to your response paper.
After reading these instructions, students found themselves confronted
by either 6 different essay topics (limited-choice condition) or 30 different
essay topics (extensive-choice condition). All essay questions dealt with
topics related to the material covered in the course. Careful attention wasgiven to selecting essay topics that were comparable in difficulty, andanalyses of performance revealed no differences as a function of thespecific topic chosen.
In all, there were six different versions of the extra-credit assignment. In
addition to the 30-topic assignment, five versions of the 6-topic assignment
were created, such that all of the items from the list of 30 were counterbalanced across the five limited-choice assignments.
Students were first informed of the movie requirement during the weekly
section meeting before Thanksgiving week. To minimize the possibility
that students would notice the different versions, assignments were handed
out in the section meetings rather than in class lectures. At this time, theteaching assistants distributed these assignments, with an identical verbal
description, reinforcing the information about the opportunity for students
to gain two extra points on their next midterm. On no occasion werestudents led to believe that their essays would be graded. On the contrary,
they were explicitly told that their performance on the assignment was
irrelevant to the receipt of the two points.
Because each of the five teaching assistants administered two separate
sections, one of these two sections was assigned to the limited-choice
condition and the other was assigned to the extensive-choice condition. In
this way, five sections of students received six essay topics and fivesections of students received thirty. Because the number of students per
section varied, it was not possible to assign equal numbers of students tothe two conditions. As a result, 70 students were assigned to the limitedchoice condition, whereas 123 students were assigned to the extensivechoice condition. No differences were found across the five teachingassistants in terms of assignment completion; students assigned to one
teaching assistant were just as likely to do the extra-credit assignment as
students assigned to another teaching assistant.

Participants

Dependent Measures

One hundred ninety-seven students in an introductory social psychology
class at Stanford University served as the participants in this study. The
class included 116 women and 81 men. In addition to attending biweekly
lectures, all students were required to attend smaller weekly discussionsections led by five graduate student teaching assistants. The students weredivided into 10 discussion sections; each of the five teaching assistantsled 2 sections. Sections included anywhere from 8 to 26 students. Four

Two measures assessed students' subsequent motivation in the two
conditions. The first was the percentage of participants who chose to write
an essay. The second was the quality of the essays produced.
As previously indicated, the students were told that their performance onthese extra-credit assignments would have no impact on their class grades.
Nevertheless, it was of interest to determine whether the number ofalternatives available might also affect performance quality. Accordingly,

WHEN CHOICE IS DEMOTIVATING
two graduate students, unaware of both the participants' choice conditions
and the hypotheses of this experiment, graded each of the response papers
for both content and form using two 10-point scales, which ranged from"extremely poor" to "excellent. ''2
When grading for content, two factors were taken into consideration.
The first was the accurate depiction and appropriate use of socialpsychological concepts. The second was the use of clear examples from thefilm that related and mapped onto the different social-psychological processes being discussed. The inter-rater correlation for content scores was
r = .70, p < .0001. The form score similarly assessed students' facility on
two dimensions. First, each paper was judged on whether it had clear
structure (e.g., "Did the introductory paragraph define a hypothesis?").
Second, the papers were evaluated on technical proficiency--spelling,grammar, and the like. The inter-rater correlation for form scores was r =.89, p < .0001. Because there was considerable agreement across the twograders on both content and form, their ratings were averaged, yielding one
content and one form score per student.

Results
Preliminary Analyses
The central point of interest in Study 2 lay, once again, in thecomparison of participants' responses across the two experimental
conditions of limited versus extensive choice. Because preliminary
analyses showed no differences as a function of gender and nointeractions between gender and condition on either measure, thedata were collapsed across this factor.

Assignment Completion
Did the number of choices provided on the instruction sheet
actually influence the percentage of students who completed theassignment? Overall, 65% (126) of the students chose to do theassignment. There was, however, a significant effect of condition,
X2(1, N = 193) -- 3.93, p < .05. Of the 70 students assigned to thelimited-choice condition, 74% turned in the assignment. In contrast, of the 123 students assigned to the extensive-choice condition, only 60% chose to complete the assignment.

Quality of Essays
Were these differences in students' willingness to write an essay
also reflected in differences in the quality of these essays? For
content, there was a main effect for condition, F(1, 124) = 4.18,
p < .05. On average, students assigned to the limited-choice
condition performed slightly, although significantly, better(M = 8.13, SD = 0.95) than those assigned to the extensive-choice
condition (M = 7.79, SD = 0.91). A similar main effect was foundfor form, F(I, 124) = 4.64, p < .03. On average, students in thelimited-choice condition scored higher (M = 8.04, SD = 1.33)
than students in the extensive-choice condition (M = 7.59,
SD = 1.02).
Because measures of content and form proved significantly
correlated (r = .52, p < .0001), content and form grades were also
averaged to give one overall grade. The condition effect was alsosignificant for this overall measure, F(1, 124) = 5.65, p < .02,
with students in the limited-choice condition receiving higher
grades (M = 8.09, SD = 1.05) than those in the extensive-choice
condition (M = 7.69, SD = 0.82).

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One might ask whether the observed differences in motivationor performance could somehow have been driven by differences instudents' prior performance in the class. There were, however, nodifferences in class midterm performance by condition among thestudents who completed the extra-credit assignments, nor were
there differences in midterm performance between those who
subsequently did or did not choose to do the assignment.

Discussion
The findings from Study 2 both confirm and expand on thefindings from Study 1. The results from both studies suggest thatthe provision of extensive choices does not necessarily lead toenhanced motivation when compared with contexts that offer alimited array of choices. Quite the opposite seems to be the case.
In both studies, people actually seemed to prefer to exercise theiropportunity to choose in contexts where their choices were limited,
and, in Study 2, they even performed better in such limited-choicecontexts.
Particularly counterintuitive, from the perspective of traditionalmodels, is the finding that the same choice selected from a limitedchoice set can lead to better performance than if the same option
had been selected from an extensive-choice set. Interestingly, incontrast to prior studies, the measure of performance in the present
experiment was designed to reflect intrinsic motivation. Because
none of the participants thought that their essays would be evaluated, the quality of the paper they wrote should have been primarily a function of their personal interest and motivation.
Thus, the results of Studies 1 and 2 support the hypothesis that
extensive-choice contexts may be initially more appealing but
are subsequently more likely to hamper people's intrinsic motivation. Although these field experiments provide compelling
empirical evidence to support this hypothesis, they shed little
light on the mediating mechanisms underlying choice overload.
What, then, are the processes that produce the decreases in subsequent motivation exhibited in contexts that offer extensive
choices?
One possibility is that people encountering overly extensive
choices use a choice-making heuristic that necessarily leads themto feel less committed to exercising their preferences. Previous
research has argued that limited-choice contexts invite people toengage in rational optimization--to try to decide which option in
a set is the single best one for them. By contrast, choosers inextensive-choice contexts may endeavor to balance the tradeoffs
between accuracy and effort, adopting simplifying heuristic strategies that are much more selective in their use of available information (Christensen-Szalanski, 1978, 1980; Payne et al., 1988,
1993). Consequently, extensive-choice contexts may invite people
merely to "satisfice"--to stop when they find any choice that
seems acceptable (Mills, Meltzer, & Clark, 1977; Simon, 1955,
1956). In other words, when people have "too many" options to
consider, they simply strive to end the choice-making ordeal byfinding a choice that is merely satisfactory, rather than optimal.
Doing otherwise would demand more effort than seems justified
by the prospective increase in utility or satisfaction. Hence, one

2 No actual grade proved lower than a "5," and grades were not restricted
to whole numbers.

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might predict that people who encounter extensive choices shouldreport making a less informed decision and should be more likely
to opt for a default choice (Hauser & Wernerfelt, 1990; Payne,
1982; Shafir et al., 1993; Shafir & Tversky, 1992). Similarly,
choosers opting to satisfice in extensive-choice contexts should
also report being less confident of their choices and less likely to
expect to be satisfied with their particular choices.
A contrasting possibility is that choosers in extensive-choicecontexts may actually feel more committed to the choice-making
process; that is, that they may feel more responsible for the choices
they make because of the multitude of options available. Theseenhanced feelings of responsibility, in turn, may inhibit choosers
from exercising their choices, out of fear of later regret. In otherwords, choice-makers in extensive-choice contexts might feel
more responsible for their choices given the potential opportunityof finding the very best option, but their inability to invest therequisite time and effort in seeking the so-called best option mayheighten their experience of regret with the options they havechosen. If so, choosers in extensive-choice contexts should perceive the choice-making process to be more enjoyable given
all the possibilities available. They should at the same time,
however, find it more difficult and frustrating given the potentiallyoverwhelming and confusing amount of information to beconsidered.
Study 3, therefore, sought both to provide an instantiation of thephenomenon of choice overload in a controlled laboratory setting
and to supplement the findings from the last two studies by
including a number of measures designed to test the two opposing
hypotheses outlined above. To test the first hypothesis--that people encountering extensive choices tend to use a satisficing heuristic, whereas people encountering limited choices tend to use an
optimizing heuristic--Study 3 examined choosers' expectations
regarding the choices they had made.
As before, after participants had encountered either a limitedarray or an extensive array of options in this study, they were asked
to make a choice. Unlike the prior two studies, however, before
being given the opportunity to sample the selection they had made,choosers' expectations about this choice were assessed. Participants provided predictions about how satisfied they would be with
their stated preference--whether they expected the choice they
made to be merely "satisfactory" or "among the best." Participantsalso indicated whether they had chosen a default option andreported how well-informed they felt about the choice they had
made. To test the second hypothesis--that people in extensivechoice contexts feel more responsible for the choices they m a k e - several affect items were added to Study 3. Specifically, after
making their choices, but before sampling their choices, participants were asked to provide ratings of their enjoyment, difficulty,
and frustration during the choice-making process. Later, after
sampling their choices, they provided ratings of satisfaction andregret.
Finally, Study 3 also included a no-choice control condition.
Inclusion of this third group allowed us to examine whether
differences between the limited- and extensive-choice groups were
the result of increases in motivation among limited-choice participants and/or decreases in motivation among extensive-choiceparticipants.

Study 3
In Study 3, participants initially made a selection from either alimited array or an extensive array of chocolates. Subsequently,
participants in the experimental groups sampled the chocolate of
their choosing, whereas participants in the control group sampled
a chocolate that was chosen for them. Participants' initial satisfaction with the choosing process, their expectations concerning the
choices they had made, their subsequent satisfaction with theirsampled chocolates, and their later purchasing behavior served as
the four main dependent measures in this study.
Conceptually, then, the design of Study 3 involved three groups:
limited choice, extensive choice, and a no-choice control condition. Because it seemed important to control for the number ofalternatives presented across the choice and no-choice conditions,half of the participants in the no-choice conditions were shown thesame 6 choices as participants in the limited-choice condition,
whereas the other half were shown the full array of 30 choices, aswere participants in the extensive-choice condition.
Because the choice-condition participants and their no-choicecounterparts were treated identically up through the administrationof the first set of dependent measures, analyses of these measures
will involve only comparisons of those exposed to limited displays
versus those exposed to extensive displays. Once participants had
been given either their own selection or an arbitrarily assigned
chocolate to taste, however, comparisons of limited-choice andextensive-choice participants to those in the no-choice control
condition then became relevant.
MethodParticipants
One hundred thirty-four students from Columbia University were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. There were 33 participants inthe limited-choice condition, 34 participants in the extensive-choice condition, and 67 participants in the no-choice condition. This sample included
63% women and 37% men. The ethnic distribution of the participants was
55% Caucasian, 25% Asian, 5% Latino, 4% African American, and 11%
Other.
To eliminate any participant who might have an aversion to chocolate,
all potential participants were prescreened on the basis of two questions.
First, all potential participants were asked, "Do you like chocolate?" Only
those who responded "yes" to this item were then recruited to be participants in this study. Second, participants were asked, "How often do you eat
Godiva chocolates?" Responses were coded as "never," "occasionally," or"frequently." Because it was believed that high familiarity with Godiva
flavors and varieties might confound a participant's behavior within thisstudy, only those participants who responded "never" or "occasionally"
were recruited for this study. Approximately 92% of all potential participants met these two criteria and were invited to be part of the study.
Instruments
Decision-making measures. A questionnaire was designed to examine
participants' affective responses to the choice-making process and their
expectations after making a choice. To prevent participants' responses
from being biased by the outcome of their choice, we asked them tocomplete the questionnaire after they had chosen which chocolates they
wished to sample, but before they had been given the opportunity to sample
their choice. All items called for ratings on a Likert scale ranging from 1(not at all) to 7 (extremely).

WHEN CHOICE IS DEMOTIVATING
To test the hypothesis that people encountering extensive choices canexperience the choice-making process as both enjoyable and overwhelming, the questionnaire examined participants' perceptions of the choicemaking process. Specifically, participants were asked about the extent towhich they felt the choice-making process had been enjoyable ("Howmuch did you enjoy making the choice?"), difficult ("Did you find it
difficult to make your decision of which chocolate to pick?"), or frustrating("How frustrated did you feel when making the choice?"). They also
predicted how satisfied they would be if they had the opportunity to sample
their chosen chocolate ("How satisfied do you think you will be if you
sample this chocolate?").
To evaluate whether people encountering limited choices are more likely
to optimize (i.e., to seek the very best option) whereas people encountering
extensive choices are more likely to satisfice (i.e., to accept any satisfactory
option), two items were created to examine participants' expectations
regarding their choices. To measure perceived satisficing, we asked participants to provide ratings for, "How confident are you that this chocolate
will satisfy you?" To examine perceived optimizing, we asked "Howconfident are you that this chocolate will be among the best you've everhad?" Similarly, to evaluate whether people in an extensive-choice context
feel less informed and are therefore more prone to choose a default option,
we also asked participants, "Do you feel that you made a well-informed
decision on the chocolate you picked?" and, "Is this a chocolate that you
would normally pick?"
Sample-satisfaction measures. The satisfaction measures were designed to inquire about participants' overall satisfaction with their sampled
chocolates. Specifically, these questions assessed participants' actual satisfaction with the chocolate they had consumed, their regrets about the
chocolate they had tasted, and their satisfaction with the number of choices
they had been given. Experimental participants reported their satisfaction
with their chosen samples, of course, whereas control participants reported
their satisfaction with a chocolate that had been chosen for them.
To test the hypothesis that participants exposed to extensive choices
would be less satisfied with their choices than participants exposed tolimited choices, three items examined participants' satisfaction with theirsampled chocolates: "How satisfied were you with the chocolate you
tasted?", "How much did you enjoy the sample you tasted?", and, "Howtasty was the chocolate you sampled?" All responses were given on Likert
scales, ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (extremely).
Similarly, to test whether any potential decrease in satisfaction amongpeople encountering overly extensive choices would be accompanied by anincrease in regret, two items were included to measure regret: "How muchdo you regret eating the chocolate you tasted?" and "Do you think that
there were chocolates on the table that tasted much better?" Both items
were answered on 7-point Likert scales, ranging from 1 (no, not at all) to 7
(yes, completely).
Because one can only infer through behavioral measures in Studies 1
and 2 whether 30 or 24 choices actually constituted an overly extensive
choice set, Study 3 included a manipulation check in which participants
were asked their perceptions about the number of choices provided. Specifically, participants were asked: "When initially given the task to pick achocolate from the display, do you think the selection should have included
more kinds of chocolates?" Responses were given on a 7-point Likert scale,with 1 being, l felt that I had too f e w to choose from, 4 being, I had theright number of choices to choose from, and 7 being, No, I had too many
to choose from.
Demographic measures. At the conclusion of the experiment, all participants completed a brief demographics questionnaire. This questionnaire
inquired about participants' age, ethnicity, gender, and affiliation with
Columbia University.
Experimental

Procedures

As participants entered the laboratory, the experimenter directed them tosit at a round table on which there was one of two different displays of1001

chocolates. In the limited-choice display, participants encountered one rowof 6 different flavors of Godiva chocolates; in the extensive-choice display,
participants encountered 30 different chocolates, arranged in five rowsof 6. Next to each chocolate was a label indicating its "official," Godiva
name (e.g., "Grand Marnier Truffle"). When designating the compositionof the five rows, careful attention was given to ensuring that similar flavors
were not in the same row (e.g., a Strawberry Cordial would not be assigned
to the same group as the Raspberry Cordial). In those conditions in which
participants encountered only six chocolates, the five groups were rotatedsuch that for every chocolate encountered in the extensive-choice display
there was a possibility of the same chocolate being encountered in thelimited-choice display.
The experimenter gave participants the following cover story for the
study: "We're doing a marketing research study that examines how people
select chocolates. What I would like you to do is take a look at the namesof the chocolates and the chocolates themselves, and tell me which one you
would buy for yourself." All participants then proceeded to choose thechocolate they would wish to have.
Because prior research suggests that people making a choice among four
alternatives sometimes take less time than people making a selection
between two (Hendrick, Mills, & Kiesler, 1968; Kiesler, 1966), the amountof time spent deciding which chocolate to sample was also recorded in thisstudy. Once the participants pointed to a chocolate, they were asked tocomplete the decision-making measures described above.
Next, participants encountered the manipulation of choice. In the two
choice conditions, the experimenter offered the participants the opportunity
to sample the chocolate they had chosen. In contrast, in the no-choice
condition, the participants were not permitted to sample the chocolate they
had chosen but were instead told, "We have some sample chocolates thathave been chosen for you at random. These are [e.g.,] 'Milk Chocolate
Truffles'." The experimenter then opened a box containing eight identicalchocolates, which were not of the participants' choosing, and asked theparticipants to take one. As in prior studies (Zuckerman et al., 1978), we
used a yoked design, so that the same chocolates chosen by participants inthe choice conditions were the ones offered to participants in the no-choice
condition.
After sampling the chocolate, participants completed the sample satisfaction measures and the demographics questionnaire described above.
Next, the experimenter led the participant to believe that the experiment
had concluded, saying, "Thanks. We appreciate your time. You can go see
the manager for your compensation in room three."In the payment room, a second experimenter, unaware of the condition
assignments, greeted the participants. This experimenter offered the subject
a choice of receiving a payment of either 5 dollars or a box containing four
Godiva chocolates ordinarily priced at 5 dollars: "As you know, yourcompensation is five dollars for being in the study. You can choose
between getting five dollars in cash or a box of Godiva chocolates that is
worth five dollars. Which one would you like for participating in thesurvey?" Boxes bearing the emblem of Godiva were visible to the participants as they walked into the room. The number of participants who opted
for the box of chocolates constituted the final dependent measure.
One potential problem with these experimental procedures is that although the first experimenters were unaware of the hypotheses underlying
the study, they were necessarily aware of the experimental manipulations.
As a result, one might reasonably wonder whether the experimenters mightvary their behavior across conditions. Therefore, all experimental sessions
were videotaped, and 40 sessions (10 from each choice condition and 20
from the no-choice condition) were randomly selected for coding byexternal raters. Two raters unaware of the hypotheses and the experimental
manipulations rated the friendliness of the two experimenters across theforty sessions on a 5-point Likert scale. There was considerable agreement
across the two raters (r = .69, p < .0001), and their responses were
therefore averaged. This average friendliness score (M = 2.86, SD = 0.78)

1002

IYENGAR AND LEPPER

did not vary by condition, F(2, 36) = .01, ns, and there were no interactions
between condition and experimenter, F(2, 36) = .22, ns.

Results
Preliminary Analyses
Our primary aim in Study 3 was to examine differences insatisfaction, purchasing behavior, and related measures acrosslimited-choice, extensive-choice, and no-choice conditions. Before
turning to these central issues, however, we first examined theeffects of gender and ethnicity on these various measures. No
significant differences were observed on any of the dependent
variables as a function of these factors. Nor were there any significant interactions between these two factors and experimental
conditions. Hence, the data were collapsed across these demographic variables. 3
Finally, preliminary analyses also provided an empirical examination of two key presumptions underlying our main analyses. As
should be expected, for those measures obtained before the introduction of the choice manipulation, there were no significant
interactions between the size of the choice set and participants'
later receipt of their own selection or an arbitrary alternative.
Similarly, as predicted, there were no significant differences on
measures obtained after the choice manipulation between nochoice participants previously exposed to a limited versus an
extensive set of available alternatives. Data for the relevant measures were therefore collapsed, as appropriate, across these factors.

Manipulation Checks
Choosing time. As one might assume, the amount of timespent deciding which chocolate to sample varied significantly bycondition, F(1, 131) = 77.02, p < .0001. Contrary to some priorfindings (Hendrick et al., 1968; Kiesler, 1966), participants spentsignificantly more time (in seconds) deciding which chocolate to
sample when there were 30 chocolates (M _ 24.36, SD = 12.99)
than they did when there were only six (M = 8.91, SD = 6.02).
However, it should be noted that, unlike this study, previous
studies only compared choosing times across much smaller choicesets of two versus four alternatives.
Perception of choices. Similarly, we examined participants'
responses to the question concerning whether they felt the numberof choices available was too few, just right, or too many. Hereagain, there was a significant effect for the number of options
presented, F(1, 132) = 43.68, p < .0001, Participants who encountered 30 chocolates reported feeling that they had been given"too many" (M = 4.88, SD = 1.20), whereas participants who
encountered 6 chocolates reported feeling that the number ofalternatives was "about right" (M = 3.61, SD = 1.01). These data
provide direct evidence for our assumption that 30 chocolates
would seem an overly extensive choice set.

that they had chosen a satisfactory chocolate versus one of the very
best chocolates did not vary as a function of the number of
chocolates displayed. The results revealed no differences by condition for questions regarding goals of either satisficing, F(1,94) = 0.15, ns, or optimizing, F(1, 94) = 0.09, ns. Instead, awithin-subject analysis of variance (ANOVA) suggested that boththe limited- and extensive-choice participants were predictably
more confident that their chocolate selection would satisfy them
(M = 5.67, SD = 1.21) than that it would be among the best they
had ever had (M = 4.16, SD = 1.59), F(1, 190) = 54.75, p <.0001.
Nor were there any differences in anticipated satisfaction. Results indicate that baseline predictions of likely satisfaction did notvary by condition, F(1, 132) = 0.61, ns, suggesting that participants did not perceive the number of available alternatives to he animportant variable in their expected satisfaction with their choices.
In addition, we observed no differences by condition in participants' reports of how informed they felt about their choices or in
their tendency to choose default options. Both extensive-choice
and limited-choice participants reported being moderately wellinformed (M = 4.53, SD = 1.39), F(1, 132) = 0.14, ns. Likewise,
there were no differences in participants' responses to the questionof whether they chose a chocolate that they would normally pick,F(1, 132) = 0.24, ns.
Desirability of choosing. Is it possible for people to experienceextensive choices as being both more enjoyable and more overwhelming? Consistent with the findings of Study 1, participants
encountering the extensive options (M = 6.02, SD = 0.75) reported enjoying the decision-making process significantly morethan participants who encountered limited options (M = 4.72,
SD = 1.36), F(1, 132) = 47.01, p < .0001. Yet, participants
offered extensive choices (M = 4.45, SD = 1.79) also reported
finding the decision-making process to be more difficult than did
participants offered more limited choices (M = 3.30, SD = 1.49),
F(1,132) = 16.38, p < .0001. Likewise, extensive-choice participants (M = 3.10, SD = 1.77) also reported finding the decisionmaking process to be more frustrating than did limited-choiceparticipants (M = 2.24, SD = 1.72), F(1,123) = 7.61, p < .007.
Interestingly, there was no significant correlation between theextent to which participants reported enjoying decision-making
and the extent to which they found the decision process to bedifficult (r = .11, ns) or frustrating (r = .11, ns). How difficult
participants found the decision-making process, however, wascorrelated with the extent to which they found the process to be
frustrating (r = .36, p < .0001). Thus, it appears that people canindeed find choosing among too many alternatives to be bothenjoyable and overwhelming.

Subsequent Satisfaction
Five questions assessed participants' actual subsequent satisfaction with the particular sample chocolate they were given to taste.

Decision-Making Measures
Satisficing

versus optimizing.

Were participants in theextensive-choice condition more apt to satisfice, and were participants in the limited-choice condition more apt to optimize? Wefind no empirical evidence to support such a hypothesis. Contrary
to prior predictions (Mills et al., 1977), participants' confidence

3 Preliminary analyses also asked whether certain chocolates were more
preferred than the rest. While no chocolate was universally chosen, there
were four chocolates that were never selected. An examination of thefrequency distribution reveals that none of the thirty chocolates was selected more than 12.7% of the time and that the specific choices did not
differ by condition.

WHEN CHOICE IS DEMOTIVATING
Three of these items (i.e., tastiness, enjoyment, and satisfaction)assessed subjective enjoyment directly. Because these questions
proved significantly correlated with one another (average r = .62,
p < .0001) and the pattern of results was similar across the three,
a composite enjoyment measure was derived by averaging acrossthese three items for each participant. Two other items assessed
participants' feelings of regret about the chocolate they had tasted.
These two items also proved significantly correlated (r = .41, p <.0001) and were combined into a composite regret measure. Finally, because these two composite measures (i.e., "enjoyment"and "regret") proved to be highly related (r = - . 5 5 , p < .0001),
a single overall sample-satisfaction score was created for eachparticipant by averaging these components (with regret scores, ofcourse, being coded negatively). It should be noted that the three
items that constitute the satisfaction measure were converted intoz scores before averaging, as were the two items constituting theregret measure.
A one-way ANOVA on these overall satisfaction scores yieldedsignificant differences among conditions, as in the prior studies,F(I, 122) = 28.02, p < .0001. Tukey comparisons further showed
that, in keeping with the results from Studies 1 and 2, participantsin the limited-choice condition were significantly more satisfied(M = 6,28, SD = 0.54) with their sampled chocolates than wereparticipants in the extensive-choiee condition (M = 5.46,
SD = 0.82). Tukey comparisons further revealed that on thismeasure, participants in both choice groups reported themselves tobe more satisfied with their chosen chocolates than did no-choiceparticipants (M = 4.92, SD = 0.98), who had been given samplesof chocolates they had not selected.

Purchasing Behavior
Finally, as in the previous studies, we also examined the effects
of limited versus extensive choices on participants' ultimate purchasing behavior. Once again, the results demonstrated the significant advantages of a relatively small choice set, X2(2, N =134) = 21.84, p < .0001. In particular, participants in the limitedchoice condition (48%) were significantly more likely to choose
chocolates as compensation, as compared with participants in boththe extensive-choice condition (12%), X2(1, N --- 67) = 10.78, p <.001, and the no-choiee condition (10%), X2(1, N = 100) = 18.06,
p < .0001, which, on this behavioral measure, clearly did not
differ from one another.
G e n e r a l Discussion
In 1830, Alexis de Tocqueville commented that, "In America I
have seen the freest and best educated of men in circumstances thehappiest to be found in the world; yet it seemed to me that a cloud
habitually hung on their brow, and they seemed serious and almost
sad even in their pleasures" (p. 536). More than 100 years later, weare confronted by an empirical instantiation of what some havereferred to as "the tyranny of choice" (Schwartz, 2000).
The three studies described in this report demonstrate for the
first time the possibility that, although having more choices might
appear desirable, it may sometimes have detrimental consequences
for human motivation. Studies 1, 2, and 3 provide compelling
empirical evidence that the provision of extensive choices, thoughinitially appealing to choice-makers, may nonetheless undermine

1003

choosers' subsequent satisfaction and motivation. Study 1 showedthat although more consumers were attracted to a tasting boothwhen the display included 24 flavors of jam rather than 6, consumers were subsequently much more likely to purchase jam if
they had encountered the display of only 6 jams. Study 2 revealed
that students in an introductory college level course were more
likely to write an essay for extra credit when they were provided
a list of only 6, rather than 30, potential essay topics. Moreover,even after having chosen to write an essay, students wrote higher
quality essays if their essay topic had been picked from a smaller
rather than a larger choice set. Finally, Study 3 demonstrated thatpeople reported enjoying the process of choosing a chocolate morefrom a display of 30 than from a display of 6. However, despite
their greater initial enjoyment in the extensive-display condition,
participants proved more dissatisfied and regretful of the choices
they made and were subsequently considerably less likely tochoose chocolates rather than money as compensation for their
participation.
But, what are the mediating mechanisms underlying this phenomenon of choice overload? Contrary to the predictions of our
first hypothesis, we found no empirical support in Study 3 for thetheory that choosers in extensive-choice contexts are more likely
to use a satisficing heuristic, whereas choosers in a limited-choicecontext are more likely to use an optimizing heuristic. Instead, atleast in this study, choosers in both extensive-choice contexts andlimited-choice contexts tended to report using a satisficing heuristic. Nor were there any differences in participants' reports of theiranticipated satisfaction with the selections they had made, their
feelings of having made an informed choice, or their tendency to
opt for a default choice.
Consistent with our second hypothesis, however, we did findconsiderable empirical support for the theory that choosers inextensive-choice contexts enjoy the choice-making process
more--presumably because of the opportunities it affords--but
also feel more responsible for the choices they make, resulting infrustration with the choice-making process and dissatisfaction with
their choices. Indeed, participants in the extensive-choice condition reported experiencing the decision-making process as being
simultaneously more enjoyable, more difficult, and more frustrating. Later, after actually sampling their chocolates, extensivechoice participants reported being more dissatisfied and having
more regret about the choices they had made than did limitedchoice participants. This greater dissatisfaction and regret exhibited by extensive-choice participants may be the consequence of an
initial greater tendency to disengage from the choice-making process, which later results in the choosers' inability to use thepsychological processes for the enhancement of the attractivenessof their own choices (see Gilovich & Medvec, 1995). Even morecompelling, participants in the extensive-choice condition wereactually less likely to opt for chocolates rather than money as theircompensation than were their limited-choice counterparts, andthey did not differ in this respect from participants in the no-choicecontrol condition.
How can there be so much dissatisfaction in the face of so muchopportunity? More than providing a conclusive answer to thisquestion, the present findings raise a number of questions of boththeoretical and practical relevance that are worth considering in
future research.

1004

IYENGAR AND LEPPER

Perhaps it is not that people are made unhappy by the decisions
they make in the face of abundant options but that they are instead
unsure--that they are burdened by the responsibility of distinguishing good from bad decisions. Interviews with several hundred
U.S. citizens suggest that modern Americans are uneasy about
their current life decisions--that they do not seem to knowwhether they are doing the right things with their lives, or evenwhat those "right things" are (BeUah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swindler& Tipton, 1985). Our findings demonstrate that the offer of overly
extensive choices in relatively trivial choice-making contexts canhave significant demotivating effects, but perhaps the phenomenonof choice overload may be further exacerbated in contexts (such asdecisions about major stock purchases or alternative medical treatments) in which (a) the costs associated with making the "wrong"choice, or even beliefs that there are truly "wrong" choices, aremuch more prominent, and/or (b) substantial time and effort would
be required for choosers to make truly informed comparisonsamong alternatives. In the present studies, care was taken to selecttasks for which "right" and "wrong" choices would be subjective
and for which the effort involved in making a choice would belargely a function of personal preferences. If one were to compare
the present contexts to those in which the choosers perceived there
to be significantly "better" and "worse" choices, in domains of
personal significance, we might expect even more substantial
choice overload effects.
Indeed, whether choosers perceive their choice-making task to
be a search for the "objectively best" option, or a search for the one
option most reflective of their personal preferences, may fundamentally influence their very preference for choosing. Although
prior research has indicated that people will necessarily be intrinsically motivated to make their own choices, the more choosers
perceive their choice-making task to necessitate expert information, the more they may be inclined not to choose, and further, they
may even surrender the choice to someone else--presumably moreexpert (e.g., de Charms, 1968; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Langer &Rodin, 1976; Lepper, 1983; Malone & Lepper, 1987; Schulz,
1976; Taylor, 1989; Zuckerman et al., 1978). In Schwartz's (1994)
terms, one important paradox confronting the modern world is thatas the freedom of individuals expands, so too does their dependence on institutions and other people.
Similarly, if the identity of the choice recipient were varied, wemight observe variation in the experience of choice overload
among the choosers. Prior research has shown that, when confronted by choices that are anticipated to result in regret, choosers
experience decision aversion more so when making choices forothers--even when the others exhibit no preferences--than when
making choices for themselves (Beattie, Baron, Hershey, &Spranca, 1994). In the three present studies, we did not systematically vary the identity of the choice recipients. Consistent with theresults of Beattie and his colleagues, we might expect that if wewere to compare choosers making choices for themselves withchoosers making choices for others, the latter would show greater
choice overload effects in extensive-choice contexts.
Perhaps the experience of choice overload is accompanied by
the use of more decision rules, which are affective rather thancognitive. Contrary to recent findings by Dhar and Nowlis (1999),
the results from our studies suggest that even when a choice-making situation involves an approach-approach conflict, the provision of choices with uniquely good features does not appear tominimize decision aversion. Being confronted by a plethora ofoptions, each possessing unique attributes, may instead simultaneously attract and repel choice-makers. One wonders then: Do
people use affective experiences aroused by choosing as a heuristic
for deciding how they ultimately feel about the product? If notsuch an affective "bleedover," then what else might be accounting
for these effects?
Moreover, even when choices are self-generated, it is possiblethat overly extensive choices may have demotivating consequences. Because people seem to enjoy extensive-choice contexts
more than limited-choice contexts, they may sometimes prefer tomake available to themselves many more choices than they can
possibly handle. Hence, it would be of considerable theoreticalinterest to examine the effects of extensive-choice contexts that are
self-generated, rather than externally generated as in the present
studies.
Finally, it is worth considering attributes of contexts in which
the provision of extensive choices does not lead to choice overload. To minimize the likelihood of simple preference-matching in
the present studies, we selected specific choice-making tasks andprescreened our participant population to ensure that they would
not already have strong specific preferences. We all know people
who, when confronted by an extraordinary variety of options,know exactly what they want. Is this certainty in preference theresult of arduously developed and maintained expertise? The ultimate paradox might be that the only circumstance in which choosers are truly comfortable with extensive choices is when, becauseof the chooser's previous experience, these choices are perceived
as limited in number. Therefore, the precise number of options thatwould be considered reasonable, as opposed to excessive, mayvary as a function of both the chooser's perception of their choicemaking goals and their prior expertise with the subject of choice.
Having unlimited options, then, can lead people to be moredissatisfied with the choices they make. Although such a finding
may seem counterintuitive to social psychologists long schooled inresearch on the benefits of choice, the commercial world seems
already to know what experimental psychologists are just now
discovering. Several major manufacturers of a variety of consumer
products have been streamlining the number of options they provide customers. Proctor & Gamble, for example, reduced thenumber of versions of its popular Head and Shoulders shampoo
from 26 to 15, and they, in turn, experienced a 10% increase insales (Osnos, 1997). Indeed, even to many of today's humorists,
this phenomenon seems already well known. Consider Bill Watterson's (1996) portrayal of one particularly exasperated grocery
shopper:
Look at this peanutbutter! There must be three sizes of five brandsof
four consistencies!Who demandsthis much choice? I know! I'll quit
my job and devote my life to choosing peanut butter! Is "chunky"
chunky enough or do ! need EXTRA chunky? I'll compare ingredients! I'll compare brands! I'I1 compare sizes and prices! Maybe I'll
drive around and see what other stores have! So much selection,and
so little time! (p. 107)

WHEN CHOICE IS DEMOTIVATING

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