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We're born with the desire, but we don't really know how to choose. We don't know what our taste is, and we don't know what we are seeing.

Sheena Iyengar

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Sheena Iyengar
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: November 29
Professor
Psychologist
University Teacher
Writer
City of Toronto
Sheena Sethi
Really
Taste
Choose
Seeing
Desire
Born

More quotes by Sheena Iyengar

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When Japanese went to Hawaii they would go straight and buy the same thing that they would buy in Japan. They just got it cheaper, which they liked. And so they would still eat the red bean ice cream or the green tea ice cream, but they didn't really take advantage of the variety and it wasn't clear that they cared.
Sheena Iyengar
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When companies try to guess what consumers want, they essentially make the choice for consumers.
Sheena Iyengar
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The expansion of choice has become an explosion of choice.
Sheena Iyengar
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We are often in society told to make decisions in one of two ways. We're either told Use your gut, just go with how you feel about it and let that guide you, or we're told to use reason - some very deliberative methodical process of pros and cons and really thinking it through.
Sheena Iyengar
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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 Iyengar
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Well certainly not having any choice - having your entire life dictated by others.
Sheena Iyengar
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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.
Sheena Iyengar
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In order to 'hold fast' to something, one must allow oneself to be held to something. That commitment may be one of the hardest things to practice in a world of so much choice.
Sheena Iyengar
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Now to what...? How we teach people to make choices and the things they're going to make choices over - that is culturally learned.
Sheena Iyengar
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About the only question that we would say and this is a big one in our lives that we would say you don't just use pure reason to decide the answer to is anything that affects your happiness, because then gut and reason answer very different questions. So gut tells you How do I feel about this right now?
Sheena Iyengar
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Once the jazz musician learns all the fundamentals they can keep track of a lot of choices in an instant.
Sheena Iyengar
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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.
Sheena Iyengar
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I mean it wasn't that they sat around thinking oh gosh I needed more choices in my grocery stores the way I had come to think about it as an American growing up.
Sheena Iyengar
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The key to getting the most from choice is to be choosy about choosing.
Sheena Iyengar
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What's interesting is that the way we go about finding our marriage partners today is quite different from the way it used to be in this culture.
Sheena Iyengar
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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.
Sheena Iyengar
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The typical American reports making about 70 [choices] in a typical day.
Sheena Iyengar
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I've done a number of studies with speed dating and Match.com and what's interesting is that you know we still walk into a speed dating event, you know, thinking about what it is we're looking for in a mate and so you ask people, like women will say I'm looking for somebody who is really kind and sincere and smart and funny.
Sheena Iyengar
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So for decisions about happiness you essentially need at least both and probably even more than that, you probably also need to do analysis that doesn't involve yourself to get at the answer of what will make you happy in 10 years.
Sheena Iyengar
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I 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 Iyengar