Read the text. Is too much choice making us unhappy?
(1)
Years ago there were only two kinds of coffee – black or white. But nowadays when you go into a coffee shop in the UK you are given about twenty different options. Do you want a Cappuccino, a Latte, a Caramel Macchiato, an Americano, or a White Mocha?
(2)
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In big supermarkets we have to choose between thousands of products – my local supermarket has 35 different kinds
of milk! When we are buying clothes or electrical gadgets, looking for a hotel on a travel website, or just deciding which TV channel to watch, we are constantly forced to choose from hundreds of possibilities.
(3) . However, university researchers have discovered that too much choice is making us feel unhappy and dissatisfied.
The problem is that we have so many options that we get stressed every time we have to make a decision, because
we are worried about making the wrong one. Then when we choose one thing we feel bad because we think we are missing other opportunities, and this makes us dissatisfied with what we have chosen.
(4) . Professor Mark Lepper at Stanford University in America found that people who tried six kinds of jam felt happier with their choice than those who were offered 24 jams to taste.
(5) . Professor Lepper suggests that we should try to relax when we have to choose something to buy. ‘Don’t take these choices too seriously or it will become stressful,’ he says.
‘If you pick a sofa from IKEA in 30 seconds, you’ll feel better than if you spend hours researching sofas – because you won’t know what you’re missing.’