Incentives

One of my favorite clips that were provided in the lecture slide was the Ted Talk with Barry Schwartz. In this Ted Talk Barry Schwartz discusses his thoughts of maximizing the welfare of our citizens by maximizing individual freedom. He proposes that we should do this because freedom is essential to being human, and if people have freedom we will do things on our own to maximize our own welfare and no one has to decide on our behalf. He also discusses that the way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice. He goes on to talk about how if you add options to people’s choices that can’t help to increase the expectations of their choice, which will produce less satisfaction with the results, even when the results are positive. I personally am very indecisive and I do notice that when I am provided with many choices it makes the decision obviously harder to make. I often am not satisfied with my decision-making abilities once I’m provided with many options.