Too Much to Choose From: Bas Kast on Decisions and Happiness

More options sound like more freedom. At a shop, that freedom can turn into a long pause in front of a shelf. Bas Kast’s book on choice and happiness helped me put that familiar feeling into words.

The Stress of Choosing

As a child, I could take ages to pick something at the supermarket. Years later I still hesitated over clothes and electronics. Once I had found two good options, finding more did not necessarily make the decision easier.

Kast is interested in the gap between material abundance and how satisfied we feel. Where a choice carries real consequences, it makes sense to want more room to decide. In ordinary shopping, the same abundance can leave you revisiting the alternatives after you have already paid.

What a Table of Jams Can Tell Us

The book revisits a study by Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper in which a shop offered either six or twenty-four jams to sample. The larger table attracted more interest. Among people who stopped, the smaller table produced more purchases, about thirty percent compared with three percent. That describes what happened at those displays, with those shoppers.

Kast also mentions George Miller’s well-known discussion of the number seven and the limits of handling information. I take it as a reason to make a shortlist, rather than a fixed rule for the ideal number of choices.

What Prosperity Leaves Unanswered

Another part of the book looks at Richard Easterlin’s work on income and happiness. His paradox concerns the tension between what higher income can mean for individuals and what happens to average happiness as a country grows richer. The answer depends on the question and the timescale.

Kast goes on to ask what happens when time feels like money. The hours left unplanned can start to feel like a waste. The pressure to keep up can make the next decision feel more consequential than it is.

Give the Decision Less to Carry

I found the book most useful when I thought about an ordinary decision. I can decide what I need first, pick a few things that meet it and stop looking once one will do. Sometimes it is enough to take a break before returning to the question. The shelf will still be there.

Iyengar and Lepper’s study · Columbia Business School