87. People Want More Choices and Information than They Can Actually Process

If you stand in any aisle in any retail store in most parts of the world, you’ll be inundated with choices. Whether you’re buying candy, cereal, TVs, or jeans, you’ll likely have a huge number of items to choose from. No matter what you are asking people to decide on, if you ask people whether they’d prefer to choose from a few alternatives or have lots of choices, most people will say they want lots of choices.

Too Many Choices Paralyzes the Thought Process

Sheena Iyengar’s book The Art of Choosing details her own and others’ research on choice. In graduate school Iyengar conducted what is now known as the “jam” study. Iyengar and Mark Lepper (2000) decided to test the theory that people who have too many choices will not choose at all. They set up booths at a busy upscale grocery store and posed as store employees. They alternated the selection on the table. Half of the time there were six choices of fruit jam for people to try, and the other half of the time there were 24 jars of jam.

Which Table had More Visitors?

When there were 24 jars of jam, 60 percent of the people coming by would stop and taste. When there were six jars of jam, only 40 percent of the people would stop and taste. So having more choices was better, right? Not really.

Which Table Resulted in More Tasting?

You might think that people would taste more jam when the table had 24 varieties. But they didn’t. People stopped at the table, but they only tasted a few varieties whether there were six or 24 choices available. People can remember only three or four things at a time (see the chapter “How People Think and Learn”), and they can decide among only three or four things at a time.

Which Table Resulted in More Purchases?

The most interesting part of Iyengar’s study is that 31 percent of the people who stopped at the table with six jars actually made a purchase. But only 3 percent of the people who stopped at the table with 24 jars actually made a purchase. So even though more people stopped by, fewer people purchased. To give you an example of the numbers, if 100 people came by (they actually had more than that in the study, but 100 makes the calculations easy for our purposes), 60 of them would stop and try the jam at the 24-jar table but only two would make a purchase. At the six-jar table, 40 people would stop and try the jam and 12 of them would actually make a purchase.

Why People Can’t Stop

So if “less is more,” then why do people always want more choices? It’s part of that dopamine effect. Information is addictive. It’s only when people are confident in their decisions that they stop seeking more information.

Limit the Choices in the Call to Action

In order to maximize the likelihood that people will take action after your presentation, limit the number of choices you are asking them to make. Limit the number of options you give for the call to action to three or four at the most.