Sheena Iyengar: The art of choosing

http://www.ted.com Sheena Iyengar studies how we make choices -- and how we feel about the choices we make. At TEDGlobal, she talks about both trivial choices (Coke v. Pepsi) and profound ones, and shares her groundbreaking research that has uncovered some surprising attitudes about our decisions.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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[Kath Borup]

The story at the end with the nail polish was great.

[madleinfrost]

cool videos.. looking forward for more videos to upload..

[msvispila]

Well, I was born in Europe and grew up there for 23 years before moving to the US. I can fully understand why the eastern Europeans viewed seven different sodas as just one option. We Europeans see sodas as the bubbly, too sweet stuff that is bad for you. Majority of us don't care how they taste, they are just bad for you and you don't touch the stuff. That's why the sodas were viewed as just one option. When she added water and juice, then they had three options.

[BONZAII42]

Sorry, not at all in agreement! You failed to mention the choices made by those against the will of doctor's diagnosis and still have their loved who made full recovery. Only someone raised from parents without control over their own outcome would even contemplate such a ridiculous ideology!!!!

[rileydong]

It is a wisdom to realize all this different appearance is truly one inside. :) I don not think her study about drinks is valid. Wasting our brain on Coke or Pepsi, how can it be useful to practice decision making? One can choose not to.

[rileydong]

For that drink test, I would say the dilemma is I have to choose one from all these 7 drinks I do not like for courtesy.

[Despeado Long]

Do the people see the Asian kid problem? they performed better when the choices were made by their mum, by one day they will grow up and be parents. That is when they have to start making their own decisions for their life, since they are not trained to do so since young, they have problems making such decisions. It brings on to their social life, careers and family.

[simone favarin]

Check this new method for make choice... visual connexion: perceive, visualize, solve ... more info here: fbdagroup [dot ] org 

[Hijodeganas1]

The implied conclusion in regards to the doctor's I feel is an almost abominable one. Is she seriously suggesting it's a good idea to allow personal and important decisions that impact our lives to be in the hands of impersonal "experts"? And her reasoning is that it makes them feel better? It seems she is presupposing that decisions SHOULD be easy, and I don't see why. Why the underlying assumption that there's something wrong with feeling bad?

[Hijodeganas1]

Interesting video. I see a couple problems, though.

1. Is the problem individual choice, or an overwhelm of choice? It seems like there are two preimses in one argument.

2. Is the problem that individual choice and/or an overwhelm of choice, or that people do not know how to properly make choices? In other words, should we be reducing choices, collective choices, or learning how to make better individual choices?