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Sheena Iyengar

Sheena Iyengar Quotes

Professor

Sheena Iyengar is a distinguished professor of business at Columbia University, recognized for her work in behavioral economics. Born on November 29, 1969, she has made significant contributions to our understanding of consumer choice and decision-making processes.

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All Choices People Knows Ifs Different Mean Thinking Want Way Wells Kind Feels Firsts Giving Looks Desire Guts Home Jam Needs

Famous Sheena Iyengar Quotes

“If you have the feeling of choice, if you feel free, you will be better off. And when I say better off I mean that if people feel they have control over their lives, they call in for fewer sick days from work. They have a lesser probability of having a heart attack or stroke. They live longer. They're happier.”

People Ifs Feels Heart Mean Feelings Choices Sick Fewer Strokes Probability Better Off Heart Attack Sick Days

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“If we ask for more and more material for the construction, i.e. more and more choice, we're likely to end up with a lot of combinations that don't do much for us or are far more complex than they need to be.”

Ifs Needs Ends Choices Asks Materials Complexes Combination Construction

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“Too many choices can overwhelm us and cause us to not choose at all. For businesses, this means that if they offer us too many choices, we may not buy anything.”

Ifs May Mean Choices Causes Offers

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“We do the same thing in our own lives, embracing information that supports what we already prefer or vindicates choices we previously made.After all, it feels better to justify our opinions rather than challenge them, to contemplate only the pros and relegate the cons to the back of our minds. However, if we want to make the most of choice, we have to be willing to make ourselves uncomfortable. The question is, if we are willing, how exactly do we go about fortifying ourselves against these biases?”

Ifs Want Feels Mind Made Choices Challenges Opinion Support Information Willing Uncomfortable Justify Contemplating Feel Better

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“One could even argue that we have a duty to create and pass on stories about choice because once a person knows such stories, they can't be taken away from him. He may lose his possessions, his home, his loved ones, but if he holds on to a story about choice, he retains the ability to practice choice.”

Ifs Knows May Persons Stories Home Choices Loses Ability Practice Taken Duty Possession Arguing Loved Ones

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“I don't know if I approach choice any differently than the sighted people do, but what I am very cognizant of is that choice does have limits and because of that I really try to take advantage of the domains in which I do have choice.”

People Ifs Knows Trying Doe Choices Limits Approach Advantage Domain Cognizant

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“People were actually 6 times more likely to buy a jar of jam if they had encountered 6 than if they encountered 24, so what we learned from this study was that while people were more attracted to having more options, that's what sort of got them in the door or got them to think about jam, when it came to choosing time they were actually less likely to make a choice if they had more to choose from than if they had fewer to choose from.”

People Ifs Thinking Choices Study Doors Fewer Jam Jars

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“They [people] start asking themselves "Well which one is the best? Which one would be good for me?" And all those questions are much easier to ask if you're choosing from six than when you're choosing from 24 and if you look at the marketplace today most often we have a lot more than 24 of things to choose from.”

People Ifs Wells Looks Would Be Today Asks Easier Six Asking Be Good Marketplace

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“People will make worse financial decisions for them if they're choosing from a lot of options than if they're choosing from a few options. If they have more options they're more likely to avoid stocks and put all their money in money market accounts, which doesn't even grow at the rate of inflation.”

People Ifs Grows Decision Accounts Rate Financial Inflation

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“Also if they choose from more options than fewer options they're less satisfied with what they choose and that is true whether they're choosing chocolates or which job offer to accept.”

Ifs Jobs Accepting Offers Satisfied Chocolate Fewer

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“You know, you take a little infant and you turn on the music mobile on their crib and you find that if you give them a music mobile which turns on automatically versus a music mobile in which - if by chance their little legs or their little hands accidentally touches it - turns on they're so much more excited if by chance it turns on because they touched it, so that desire for control over their environment is... really appears from very early on and if you look at children's first words, "no, yes."”

Ifs Knows Giving Firsts Looks Children Littles Hands Desire Turns Chance Environment Excited Legs Touched Versus Infant Mobile Turn-on Little Hands

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“I mean we know that some choice makes you better off than no choice. Now do we get better off if we go from a lot of choice versus a few choices? And there I think the answer is much, much, much more complicated.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Mean Choices Answers Complicated Get Better Versus Better Off

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“If you truly have expertise - and expertise can be say a chess master who has really mastered something or an artist or a musician of some sort you know if you give a jazz musician.”

Ifs Knows Giving Artist Masters Musician Jazz Chess Jazz Music Expertise Jazz Musician

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“We also don't always know what we want. And in those cases it can actually make us worse off because it's actually easier to figure out what you want and to figure out how the options differ if you have about a handful of them than if you have a hundred of them.”

Ifs Knows Want Cases Figures Easier Hundred What You Want Handful

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“Most of the time you should use reason, there is no doubt about that because gut often makes us susceptible to lots of different biases, particularly if what you're deciding is something that you really, that expertise can be brought to bear on it, there is a way in which you can align the odds, so then you should really use reason.”

Ifs Way Should Different Reason Use Doubt Bears No Doubt Guts Odds Expertise Susceptible

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“About the only time our gut can truly outperform our reason is if we truly have developed a kind of informed intuition. So that means the chess master or someone who has really thought about it and given themselves feedback on a particular activity for at least 10,000 hours or more.”

Ifs Kind Mean Reason Given Hours Particular Masters Activity Intuition Chess Guts Only Time Feedback

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“And guys will say looks matter, but they'll also say things like "Well, she should be smart and kind." And you know those are... so the typical responses and if you give them just a few options, like five or six, then they will rate them on the very characteristics that they said were really important to them.”

Ifs Knows Giving Should Wells Looks Kind Said Important Matter Guy Five Six Smart Response Rate Characteristics Typical They Said Being Smart

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“You know if they said kindness or funniness was really most important to them then they will be more likely to say yes to the person that they thought was kind and funny.”

Ifs Knows Kind Persons Said Important Kindness They Said Funniness

Author:Sheena Iyengar

“Now if you expand their choice set. Say you give them 20 different speed dates, everything goes out the window. Everybody starts choosing in accordance with looks because that becomes the easiest criteria by which to weed out all the options and decide "So who am I going to say yes to?"”

Ifs Giving Looks Different Choices Window Speed Weed Criteria

Author:Sheena Iyengar

About the Author

Born: November 29, 1969
Known for: Professor
Quotes: 109

Related Topics

Choices People Knows Ifs Different Mean Thinking Want Way Wells Kind Feels Firsts Giving Looks Desire Guts Home Jam Needs

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Books & Sources

The Art Of Choosing: The Decisions We Make Everyday of our Lives, What They Say About Us and How We Can Improve ThemRelated source material

The Art of ChoosingRelated source material

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