I didn't really give them anymore than one choice, soda or no soda. They didn't... whereas we put a lot of stock in the differences between soda.
Sheena IyengarWe either put out 6 different flavors of jam or 24 different flavors of jam and we looked at 2 things. First, in what case were people more likely to buy a jar of jam?
Sheena IyengarWe began to look at "Why is that?" And a large part of that has to do with the fact that when people have a lot of options to choose from they don't know how to tell them apart. They don't know how to keep track of them.
Sheena IyengarI could wear makeup today, and one person would say it looks bland, another would say it looks fake, and another might tell me I look really natural. Everyone is convinced their opinion is the truth, and that's what I struggle against.
Sheena IyengarOne day I went to the manager and I asked him whether his model was working and he said, "Well, haven't you seen how many customers we have in this store?" And yes indeed I had. I mean it was definitely attracting a lot of customers, even attracting tourist buses that would land up at this store and people would go through the store and marvel at all the options, even sometimes take photographs of the various aisles.
Sheena IyengarYou 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."
Sheena Iyengar