Sublime

Professor Sheena Iyengar from the Columbia Business School is a psycho-economist who specializes in decision making. Her famous “jam study” was done using specialty jams in a grocery store.

Thus, the ads mostly affected the people who were in a “deciding” mindset when those ads ran.

people have a general tendency to stick with their current situation.

They convincingly argue that we can easily nudge people toward a particular decision based solely on how we arrange the choices for them.

week later, Iyengar and Lepper set up another booth with only six varieties. Not surprisingly, more customers stopped at the booth with the vast selection than at the one with fewer choices. But when researchers examined what customers actually purchased, the results were so “striking” that “they appear[ed] to challenge a fundamental assumption und

Across various studies, when he offered only one option, up to 97 percent of people chose to wait rather than deciding on a purchase.

Recognition of this theory played a part in P&G’s decision to simplify its range of Head & Shoulders shampoos from 26 to 15, which resulted in a 10 percent increase in sales, according to Sheena Iyengar.

on preference and choice is important and well demonstrated.

We think that required active choosing is most suitable when the choices are simple, such as whether to opt in or out. In more complex situations, such as choosing a portfolio from a menu of hundreds of mutual funds, forcing people to choose is a dubious strategy.