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I really wish people would stop citing the Paradox of Choice. The studies are not reproducible, and meta-analysis reveals extra choices have basically zero impa

I really wish people would stop citing the Paradox of Choice. The studies are not reproducible, and meta-analysis reveals extra choices have basically zero impact on consumers. We've apparently somehow learned to cope, which is probably why a chain of supermarkets specializing in choice-free shopping has yet to take off. See 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, 409-425. You can download it here: http://www.scheibehenne.de/ScheibehenneGreifenederTodd2010.pdf http://www.scheibehenne.de/ScheibehenneGreifenederTodd2010.p...

jwhite 15y ago
Thanks for your comment and link, I'll read it tomorrow. As to choice-free supermarkets, isn't Aldi somewhere in the ball-park of choice-free shopping?
jeffdavis 15y ago
> I really wish people would stop citing the Paradox of Choice. Even if it were true, it's not as though there is no choice in other language communities. What python web framework should I use? I can choose among several well-documented, supported, maintained systems; and if I need an extra library for a specialized task, there's a packaging system to install it (and it's probably well-maintained and documented, as well). The times I've looked at lisp I just don't see that at all. Look here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/540953/best-web-framework-in-common-lisp http://stackoverflow.com/questions/540953/best-web-framework... Those frameworks are all either dead or pre-production-quality. I'd like to like lisp, but I find that I'm a software engineer before a computer scientist. Things like a good extension mechanism, good documentation, a complete standard library, and a robust community matter more to me than a powerful macro system. Clojure and racket may be exceptions. I'll probably try one of those out.

jwhite 15y ago

Thanks for your comment and link, I'll read it tomorrow. As to choice-free supermarkets, isn't Aldi somewhere in the ball-park of choice-free shopping?

jeffdavis 15y ago

> I really wish people would stop citing the Paradox of Choice. Even if it were true, it's not as though there is no choice in other language communities. What python web framework should I use? I can choose among several well-documented, supported, maintained systems; and if I need an extra library for a specialized task, there's a packaging system to install it (and it's probably well-maintained and documented, as well). The times I've looked at lisp I just don't see that at all. Look here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/540953/best-web-framework-in-common-lisp http://stackoverflow.com/questions/540953/best-web-framework... Those frameworks are all either dead or pre-production-quality. I'd like to like lisp, but I find that I'm a software engineer before a computer scientist. Things like a good extension mechanism, good documentation, a complete standard library, and a robust community matter more to me than a powerful macro system. Clojure and racket may be exceptions. I'll probably try one of those out.