Barry Schwartz’s the Tyranny of Choice

        In Barry Schwartz’s “The Tyranny of Choice” he discusses choices. He discusses how many choices we have in almost every aspect of our lives, how our choices effects our everyday habits, and how and why people make different choices. Schwartz states that in our world people are divided up into two groups of decision makers; The maximizers and the satisficers. A maximizer is a person “whose goal is to get the best possible result when they make decisions”. A satisficer, on the other hand, is a person “who seek only good enough results from their choices”. If I were to categorize myself into one of these groups, I would say I am a satisficer.

        In most decision making situations I find myself satisficing. The only time I can really think of that I am definitely a maximizer is when I am shopping. Whenever I go shopping I always try and get the best product, for the least amount of money. Whether that is food, clothes, school supplies, or really anything, I try to buy myself the best that I can. Besides when buying things, I am a satisficer. I would say that I am more of a satisficer because I consider myself to be a pretty lazy person in a lot of aspects. When organizing myself, I am only just neat enough to get by. When doing schoolwork, I tend to do the least amount that I can to get a good grade. When at practice, I often times find myself being lazy and trying to get away with the minimum. Most of the decisions are done subconsciously though. I don’t try to do the minimum on purpose. Often times I actually try to maximize but just end up satisficing instead. This morning, when waking up I set my alarm for 7:00. I got up at 7:00, brushed my teeth, took a shower, got back in bed and went back to sleep until 7:45, when I realized that I had an 8:00 class, and I was running late. I hadn’t planned on going back to sleep after I woke up, and I didn’t really make a decision to do it I sort of just did it.