For Immediate Release: November 17, 2003
Contact: Tom Krattenmaker
610-328-8534
tkratte1@swarthmore.edu
http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/
At the height of the holiday season, consumers often feel depressed, anxious, and stressed. A Swarthmore psychologist says this is largely due to the paralyzing effects of a marketplace that offers a bewildering and ultimately debilitating array of choices.
"Unlimited choice, I believe, can produce genuine suffering," says Barry Schwartz, whose work explores the social and psychological effects of free-market economic institutions on moral, social, and civic concerns. "Here we are, living at the pinnacle of human possibility, awash in material abundance. As a society, we have achieved what our ancestors could only dream about. But it has come at a great price."
In his new book The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less (Ecco Press, January 2004), Schwartz finds that many modern Americans feel tyrannized by choice. He says the situation is exacerbated during the holidays.
"During the holiday season, we struggle to find the perfect gifts for our family and friends, to be exchanged at the perfect meal, with everyone in a perfect mood," he says. "With so much choice available, anything less than perfection feels like failure. And when we do, inevitably, fail to achieve perfection, we have only ourselves to blame."
In contrast, Schwartz says the most important factor in providing happiness is close social relations. "People who are married, who have good friends, and who are close to their families are happier than those who are not," he says. "Being connected to others seems to be much more important to subjective well-being than being rich."
Ironically, Schwartz says that social ties actually decrease freedom, choice, and autonomy, but in good ways. "Counterintuitive as it may appear," he says, "what seems to contribute most to happiness binds us rather than liberates us."
Schwartz is also the author of The Costs of Living: How Market Freedom Erodes the Best Things in Life (1994). Schwartz, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, has been awarded several grants by the National Science Foundation over the last three decades. He is currently the Dorwin P. Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore.
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