Although it certainly seems to be true that viable options not taken can decrease the pleasure of the option that is taken, I’ve noticed that I often enjoy my choices most when I am presented with many options, most of which are simply bad. Clearly bad choices don’t sap willpower to reject, but I feel like there’s a sense of reward in feeling that one has discriminated among one’s options and made an unambiguously correct choice. I’d be interested in seeing the results of a study where subjects’ satisfaction in their choices is tracked against an increasing number of bad options in addition to one good one.
Although it certainly seems to be true that viable options not taken can decrease the pleasure of the option that is taken, I’ve noticed that I often enjoy my choices most when I am presented with many options, most of which are simply bad. Clearly bad choices don’t sap willpower to reject, but I feel like there’s a sense of reward in feeling that one has discriminated among one’s options and made an unambiguously correct choice. I’d be interested in seeing the results of a study where subjects’ satisfaction in their choices is tracked against an increasing number of bad options in addition to one good one.