Neural networks can only hold so much information, Webb explains. The crux of Webb’s findings involves neurological insights into the way the senses work and the role they play in decision-making and perception. “You make more errors and sometimes you don’t even buy anything.” “We know your ability to make the optimal choice gets worse when you have to choose from more things,” he says. His collaborators are Paul Glimcher and Kenway Louie, both of New York University’s Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of Decision Making.
Ryan Webb, a professor of marketing at the Rotman School of Management, has published a groundbreaking neuroeconomics study that explains why some consumers feel overwhelmed or make poor choices when confronted with too many options. “This is a research agenda that is just beginning,” he observes. New studies incorporate neurological findings about the brain, and how these affect choice, says U of T behavioural economist Yoram Halevy. But in the past decade or so, the field has expanded further. His research seeks to explain irrational or self-defeating choices in a field that had long assumed rational decision-making by consumers, investors and other market actors.īehavioural economics has drawn heavily on research by psychologists who explore how the human brain processes decisions, including how it arrives at a bad decision. The Nobel winner, the University of Chicago’s Richard Thaler, is a pioneer in the field of behavioural economics. Last year’s Nobel Prize for economics recognized that many consumers like me are predictably irrational, and make choices based not on a Spock-like calculation of self-interest but for reasons that are sometimes a little silly. I did finally address my need, but the approach verged on nonsensical. Now here’s the (predictable) punchline: two weeks later, with the weather getting colder, I forced myself to go to a mall and bought an almost identical parka – for a paltry $36 less. Indignant for no good reason, I left empty handed. But when I asked the clerk to calculate the discount, he served up a final price far higher than the admittedly arbitrary amount I had set out to spend. After 15 minutes, I found a high-quality coat that ticked all the boxes.
#I make poor decisions plus#
Some consumers see a proliferation of choice as a plus to me, it’s oppressive. When we got inside, however, I was seized with a crushing desire to leave. And my wife, who shops for clothes well, was not only in the car but willing to offer advice. Yet the North Face sign on the mall’s exterior beckoned. I am a terrible shopper who hates to spend money, and I had delayed replacing my lousy winter jacket for years. On the way back to Toronto from a trip to upstate New York, I plucked up my courage and pulled into a factory outlet mall outside St.
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