Choice Overload

The jam study and early evidence

Iyengar and Lepper (2000) set up a jam tasting booth in an upscale grocery store, comparing days when 24 varieties were displayed with days when 6 were. More shoppers stopped at the 24-jam display, but about 30% of those who saw 6 jams made a purchase, far more than the roughly 3% who saw 24. In a chocolate experiment, participants who chose from 30 options were also less satisfied than those who chose from 6. Using US 401(k) retirement plan data, Iyengar, Huberman and Jiang (2004) showed that every 10 additional funds offered lowered participation by about 1.5 to 2 percentage points. Tversky and Shafir (1992) had shown that conflict among attractive alternatives increases the tendency to defer a decision, laying groundwork for choice overload.

The paradox of choice and maximizing

In The Paradox of Choice, Schwartz (2004) argued that more options raise search costs, awareness of opportunity costs, the potential for regret and expectations, all of which reduce happiness. Schwartz and colleagues (2002) showed that maximizers, who always seek the best, are less satisfied and feel more regret than satisficers, who settle for good enough, even when maximizers make objectively better choices. The concept of satisficing comes from Simon's (1955) bounded rationality. Diehl and Poynor (2010) showed that larger assortments raise expectations, so the same outcome brings greater disappointment. Botti and Iyengar (2006) pointed out that expanding choice in public policy can actually harm welfare, and Thaler and Sunstein (2008) stressed the importance of choice architecture, such as default settings, in these situations. Johnson and Goldstein's (2003) study of organ donation defaults is a leading example.

Meta-analyses and conditional effects

Meta-analyzing 50 experiments, Scheibehenne, Greifeneder and Todd (2010) reported that the average choice overload effect was virtually zero, with the direction and size of effects varying widely across studies. This showed that choice overload is not a universal law. Analyzing 99 observations, Chernev, Böckenholt and Goodman (2015) identified four moderators: choice overload becomes pronounced when the choice set is complex, when the task is difficult, when preferences are uncertain and when the goal is to decide quickly. Chernev (2003) had shown that for people who already know their ideal option, more options actually make choosing easier. Choice overload thus depends less on the number of options than on the difficulty of comparison and the clarity of preferences. Along with the decoy effect, in which choices shift with context, it is a key topic in research on choice architecture.

FAQ

What is choice overload in simple terms?

It is the phenomenon in which having too many options makes choosing harder, so people put off the decision or give up, and feel less satisfied even when they do choose. The famous example is an experiment in which a display of 6 jams sold more than a display of 24.

Are more options always bad?

No. According to meta-analyses, the average effect is close to zero, and overload appears mainly when options are complex, preferences are uncertain or the decision is hard. For someone who knows exactly what they want, more options can actually help.

Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26

References

1. Simon, H. A. (1955). A behavioral model of rational choice. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 69(1), 99–118.
2. Tversky, A., & Shafir, E. (1992). Choice under conflict: The dynamics of deferred decision. Psychological Science, 3(6), 358–361.
3. Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (2000). When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 995–1006.
4. Schwartz, B., Ward, A., Monterosso, J., Lyubomirsky, S., White, K., & Lehman, D. R. (2002). Maximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(5), 1178–1197.
5. Chernev, A. (2003). When more is less and less is more: The role of ideal point availability and assortment in consumer choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 30(2), 170–183.
6. Johnson, E. J., & Goldstein, D. (2003). Do defaults save lives? Science, 302(5649), 1338–1339.
7. Iyengar, S. S., Huberman, G., & Jiang, W. (2004). How much choice is too much? Contributions to 401(k) retirement plans. In O. S. Mitchell & S. P. Utkus (Eds.), Pension Design and Structure (pp. 83–95). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8. Schwartz, B. (2004). The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. New York: Ecco.
9. Botti, S., & Iyengar, S. S. (2006). The dark side of choice: When choice impairs social welfare. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 25(1), 24–38.
10. Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press.
11. Diehl, K., & Poynor, C. (2010). Great expectations?! Assortment size, expectations, and satisfaction. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(2), 312–322.
12. Scheibehenne, B., Greifeneder, R., & Todd, P. M. (2010). Can there ever be too many options? A meta-analytic review of choice overload. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(3), 409–425.
13. Chernev, A., Böckenholt, U., & Goodman, J. (2015). Choice overload: A conceptual review and meta-analysis. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(2), 333–358.