Are you a maximizer or a satisficer?

One thing you can say without fear of contradiction about the modern world is that we have more choice than ever before. Choice about careers; lifestyles; which city or suburb to live in; which house to buy; which car to buy; which school to send our kids to; which university to go to ourselves; which supermarket to shop in; which clothes to wear; which washing powder to buy; how to have our coffee; a never-ending list of choices assail us everywhere we go. How do we make these choices?

Research by psychologist Barry Schwartz from Swarthmore College in the States has shown that people consistently make choices in different ways. Some are maximizers – they keep looking until they have found the best possible choice among all of the alternatives. Others are satisficers – they search until they have found a choice that is good enough and then stop. People are all somewhere along this continuum, so some are more maximizers (more obsessive!) than others, and some satisficers are less selective than others. Where are you?

Comparing myself and my husband I have to say that I am a maximizer and he is a satisficer. When we are shopping for new spectacles, for example, I find a pair of spectacles I like and then I keep looking to see if there is anything better that I like more. He will find one that he likes, presumably that meets the criteria he had set, and buys them then and there. We constantly amaze (and annoy) each other to the point where it’s better if we don’t go shopping together.

Which decision style is better? Schwarz found that maximizers spent longer making a decision, as you would expect, but then they were less satisfied with their choices than the satisficers. Satisficers make a decision, are satisfied with the decision, and then move on. Maximizers, perhaps, are still looking around afterwards to see if they could have made a better choice even after it is too late. Satisficers are happier.

If you have identified yourself as a maximizer, how can you be more satisfied with the choices you make? Well, for a start, you might try to be more selective about which decisions you agonise over. If you are spending more than five minutes choosing a birthday card or a washing powder then perhaps you are not valuing your own time sufficiently. Keep the agonizing for the big decisions – the choice of schools, jobs, homes, partners, and set yourself goals for the small decisions to choose within a set time limit or within a restricted range.

Source:

Christopher Peterson, A Primer in Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

The Wayside Chapel of the Cross

I've just received my weekly newsletter from Graham Long, the wonderful pastor at the Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross here in Sydney, which has cheered me up immensely, as it always does. A few years ago I used to be a volunteer crisis counsellor at the Wayside and even though I don't go there any more I love getting the weekly update on how things are going there.

Graham is a warm and generous human being who has a good word to say about the sort of people that most of us would avert our eyes from. He can see past the drug-taking and mental illness to the humanity within and sees his place as that of walking with the person for a while and witnessing their pain. He is a great comfort to the people who use the Wayside as a refuge from all the truly terrible things that have happened to them, and are still happening to them right now.

I recommend his newsletter to you, you can sign up at www.thewaysidechapel.com.

Cheers
Carole

How optimistic are you?

Optimism has been broadly defined as the expectation that things will go well in the future. It can be broken down in terms of how an individual explains the causes of good and bad events. Optimists explain bad events as having external, unstable and specific causes (This exam was really hard) and good events as having internal, stable and global causes (I'm really good at this subject).

Pessimists are the opposite - they explain bad events as having internal, stable and global causes (I'm no good at exams) and good events as having external, temporary and specific causes (The exam was easy this time). Optimism has been shown to have a positive effect on health, sporting success, work success, avoiding depression and other mood disorders. You can test your optimism and pessimism yourself at http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/.

We can also distinguish between Little Optimism and Big Optimism. Little Optimism is about the small things in life, like whether I will be able to find a parking spot. Big Optimism is about broader, more general things, like whether the world will solve the greenhouse gas problem. Little Optimism may directly influence your behaviour and lifestyle choices, whereas Big optimism may influence your general mood, and perhaps your immune system.


It is possible to have different levels of the two types of optimism, and different expectations about different types of goals. You may be optimistic about the future, and so don't see the need to recycle, but pessimistic about whether you will get a parking spot or get the promotion at work.


Are optimistic people happier? If you are working towards your goals in the expectation that you will achieve them then I would argue that you are. If you consider all effort to be hopeless then you won't aspire to reach goals and you won't even try try to achieve them. I was at uni in the early 1980s when we all thought there would be a nuclear war at any moment, and I'm sure that expectation did nothing to help us do well at uni.

We can learn to be more optimistic. Martin Seligman advocates disputing your pesimistic beliefs and expectations, and if you do this enough it replaces the habits you learned when you were younger. He also recommends teaching optimism to your children by letting them master tasks on their own and showing them that their actions have consequences - not just negative consequences, but positive ones as well.

Seligman gives a lovely example of the gales of laughter his daughter produces when they play the game of banging on the table - she bangs once on the table, everyone else at the table bangs on the table. She then bangs three times on the table, and then so does everyone else. She is learning that she can have an effect on the people she loves, and that that she matters to them.

Surely optimism, and general happiness, is made of stuff like this.

Sources:

Christopher Peterson, A Primer in Positive Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Martin E.P. Seligman, Learned Optimism. Sydney: Random House, 1992.

Martin E.P. Seligman, Authentic Happiness. Sydney: Random House, 2002.