Because free will is the very thing that makes us human, we naturally assume choice is a good thing. And from there, it's logical, perhaps, to think that because having options is good, the more choice we have the better.

Well, stop the presses. Scientific American is reporting that recent research "strongly suggests" that, psychologically speaking, that assumption is wrong.

In an article titled, 'The Tyranny of Choice', Barry Schwartz, professor of social theory and social action at Swarthmore College, wrote: "Although some choice is undoubtedly better than none, more is not always better than less."

Schwartz points to studies by David Myers of Hope College and Robert Lane of Yale University, who conducted surveys on individual well being.

They found that increased choice and increased influence have been accompanied by a decrease in well-being.

Schwartz conducted his own research and, in doing so, categorizes his subjects into "maximizers" and "satisficers."

Maximizers are "those who always aim to make the best possible choice" and satisficers are "those who aim for 'good enough'."

Through Schwartz's study, it was found that maximizers are the least happy. "Naturally, no one can check every option, but maximizers strive toward that goal, and so making a decision becomes increasingly daunting as the number of choices rises.

"In the end, they are more likely to make better objective choices than satisficers but get less satisfaction from them," Schwartz writes. copy and pasted from Mahalanobis