full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice
Unscramble the Blue Letters
So everywhere we look, big things and small things, material things and lifestyle things, life is a matter of choice. And the world we used to live in lokoed like this.
[Well, actually, they are written in stone.] That is to say, there were some choices, but not everything was a matter of choice. The world we now live in looks like this.
[The Ten Commandments Do-It-Yourself Kit]
And the question is: Is this good news or bad news? And the answer is "yes."
(lghtaeur)
We all know what's good about it, so I'm going to talk about what's bad about it. All of this choice has two effects, two negative effects on people. One effect, plirxcdaaaoly, is that it produces paralysis rather than liberation. With so many options to cshooe from, people find it very diiflcfut to choose at all. I'll give you one very dramatic example of this, a study that was done of isvtenetnms in voluntary retirement pnlas. A colleague of mine got access to investment records from vargnuad, the giganitc mutaul fund company, of about a million employees and about 2,000 different wporleckas. What she found is that for every 10 mutual funds the employer offered, rate of participation went down two percent. You offer 50 funds — 10 percent fewer employees participate than if you only offer five. Why? Because with 50 funds to choose from, it's so damn hard to dcdeie which fund to choose, that you'll just put it off till tomorrow, and then tomorrow and then torrmoow and tomorrow, and, of course, tomorrow never comes. Understand that not only does this mean that people are going to have to eat dog food when they retire because they don't have enough money put away, it also means that mankig the decision is so hard that they pass up significant mhanictg mneoy from the employer. By not participating, they are passing up as much as 5,000 dollars a year from the employer, who would haplpiy match their contribution.
Open Cloze
So everywhere we look, big things and small things, material things and lifestyle things, life is a matter of choice. And the world we used to live in ______ like this.
[Well, actually, they are written in stone.] That is to say, there were some choices, but not everything was a matter of choice. The world we now live in looks like this.
[The Ten Commandments Do-It-Yourself Kit]
And the question is: Is this good news or bad news? And the answer is "yes."
(________)
We all know what's good about it, so I'm going to talk about what's bad about it. All of this choice has two effects, two negative effects on people. One effect, _____________, is that it produces paralysis rather than liberation. With so many options to ______ from, people find it very _________ to choose at all. I'll give you one very dramatic example of this, a study that was done of ___________ in voluntary retirement _____. A colleague of mine got access to investment records from ________, the ________ ______ fund company, of about a million employees and about 2,000 different __________. What she found is that for every 10 mutual funds the employer offered, rate of participation went down two percent. You offer 50 funds — 10 percent fewer employees participate than if you only offer five. Why? Because with 50 funds to choose from, it's so damn hard to ______ which fund to choose, that you'll just put it off till tomorrow, and then tomorrow and then ________ and tomorrow, and, of course, tomorrow never comes. Understand that not only does this mean that people are going to have to eat dog food when they retire because they don't have enough money put away, it also means that ______ the decision is so hard that they pass up significant ________ _____ from the employer. By not participating, they are passing up as much as 5,000 dollars a year from the employer, who would _______ match their contribution.
Solution
- vanguard
- choose
- paradoxically
- happily
- tomorrow
- plans
- looked
- gigantic
- difficult
- laughter
- money
- decide
- mutual
- matching
- investments
- workplaces
- making
Original Text
So everywhere we look, big things and small things, material things and lifestyle things, life is a matter of choice. And the world we used to live in looked like this.
[Well, actually, they are written in stone.] That is to say, there were some choices, but not everything was a matter of choice. The world we now live in looks like this.
[The Ten Commandments Do-It-Yourself Kit]
And the question is: Is this good news or bad news? And the answer is "yes."
(Laughter)
We all know what's good about it, so I'm going to talk about what's bad about it. All of this choice has two effects, two negative effects on people. One effect, paradoxically, is that it produces paralysis rather than liberation. With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all. I'll give you one very dramatic example of this, a study that was done of investments in voluntary retirement plans. A colleague of mine got access to investment records from Vanguard, the gigantic mutual fund company, of about a million employees and about 2,000 different workplaces. What she found is that for every 10 mutual funds the employer offered, rate of participation went down two percent. You offer 50 funds — 10 percent fewer employees participate than if you only offer five. Why? Because with 50 funds to choose from, it's so damn hard to decide which fund to choose, that you'll just put it off till tomorrow, and then tomorrow and then tomorrow and tomorrow, and, of course, tomorrow never comes. Understand that not only does this mean that people are going to have to eat dog food when they retire because they don't have enough money put away, it also means that making the decision is so hard that they pass up significant matching money from the employer. By not participating, they are passing up as much as 5,000 dollars a year from the employer, who would happily match their contribution.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| official dogma |
3 |
| salad dressing |
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| cell phone |
3 |
| industrial societies |
2 |
| deeply embedded |
2 |
| salad dressings |
2 |
| consumer electronics |
2 |
| stereo systems |
2 |
| cell phones |
2 |
| doctor tells |
2 |
| mutual fund |
2 |
| economists call |
2 |
| attractive features |
2 |
| opportunity costs |
2 |
| felt worse |
2 |
| decrease satisfaction |
2 |
Important Words
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- answer
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- colleague
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- laughter
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- life
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- looked
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- match
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- material
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- negative
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- paradoxically
- paralysis
- participate
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- participation
- pass
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- people
- percent
- plans
- produces
- put
- question
- rate
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- retire
- retirement
- significant
- small
- stone
- study
- talk
- ten
- tomorrow
- understand
- vanguard
- voluntary
- workplaces
- world
- written
- year