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The Art of Choosing Hardcover – March 1, 2010

by Sheena Iyengar (Author)

114 customer reviews

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Every day we make choices. Coke or Pepsi? Save or spend? Stay or go?

Whether mundane or life-altering, these choices define us and shape our lives. Sheena Iyengar asks the difficult questions about how and why we choose: Is the desire for choice innate or bound by culture? Why do we sometimes choose against our best interests? How much control do we really have over what we choose? Sheena Iyengar's award-winning research reveals that the answers are surprising and profound. In our world of shifting political and cultural forces, technological revolution, and interconnected commerce, our decisions have far-reaching consequences. Use THE ART OF CHOOSING as your companion and guide for the many challenges ahead.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Twelve; 1st edition (March 1, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446504106
ISBN-13: 978-0446504102
Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.5 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #637 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Applied Psychology
- #867 in Books > Business & Money > Skills > Decision Making
- #1020 in Books > Business & Money > Management & Leadership > Decision-Making & Problem Solving

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Customer Reviews

114

4.1 out of 5 stars

5 star		46%
4 star		32%
3 star		10%
2 star		7%
1 star		5%

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

115 of 126 people found the following review helpful

A brilliant book on Choosing

By David Field VINE VOICE on December 27, 2009

Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )

Ten years ago Malcolm Gladwell released "The Tipping Point" and ushered in a whole bunch of books on what new psychological research has told us about ourselves. Publishers are unwilling to take risks, so there have been many similar books since that time. Thankfully, most of them are as well-researched and written as Gladwell's book.

The latest, and definitely one of the best, is Sheena Iyenga's book, "The Art of Choosing." This book explodes the ideas we have about choice. Did you know that the U.S.A. is the place where choice is valued most highly? In Japan, for instance, people are far more likely to be told where to work and what to wear. Sheena's parents (both Sikhs) had an arranged marriage in India, and there are pictures of the wedding day. Sheena's mother seems to me to be the most beautiful woman in the world (no wonder her husband is laughing at his good fortune).

I knew two Indian programmers that had arranged marriages, but these days the men are in the U.S.A. Relatives back in India contact the parents of suitable women and, in the few weeks of the men's vacation, they go on dates with their "girlfriends," and if all goes well they date some more, until they finally find a compatible partner. This goes against the Western dream of finding a lifetime companion on your own. Apparently millions of people throughout the world manage to find someone, but the spouse is often a co-worker, a co-student, or just one of a circle of friends. We would be shocked if we weren't allowed to choose whoever we wanted to, yet in the current Indian version the women are already expecting to move abroad and to have a nerdy but well-paid husband.

Examples like this proliferate through the book.Read more ›

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323 of 344 people found the following review helpful

OK book, but did not live up to expectations

By Edward Barnett TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on January 1, 2010

Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )

I had high expectations for this book. Sheena Iyengar's research on choice is well known and often quoted, and I was looking forward to this exposition of her ideas. The book is OK, and will be a worthwhile read for those with a deep interest in choice theory and decision making; however, I personally found the book to be less valuable than other books on this subject.

More specifically:

On the positive side, the book is well researched and is particularly strong when discussing cultural differences regarding choice and decision making. It is loaded with a large number of anecdotes and research studies.

On the negative side, after having read the book, I had a hard time outlining the key points or recalling a handful of particularly powerful examples. Despite the author's frequent references to the importance of a "narrative," I struggled to find the narrative in the book.

In a nutshell, when reading this book I felt as though I would have learned a lot if I'd had the opportunity to spend a semester in one of the author's classes, benefitting from a rich give and take of ideas and arguing the interpretations of the various research findings and personal perspectives. However, not enough of that experience came through in the book -- the studies and examples were mostly ones I had read many times before, and the integrating "theory of the case" was not strongly presented.

For discussions of decision making as it relates to economic or business choices, I found "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely of Duke and "The Winner's Curse" by Richard Thaler of Princeton to be more valuable than "The Art of Choosing." For consumer choice research and issues, Barry Schwartz's "The Paradox of Choice" remains the standard.Read more ›

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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful

The Best Choice is Not to Have One?

By Strategos on January 9, 2010

Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )

If, like me, you picked up this book looking for some sound advice on how to make decisions, you'll be in for a surprise. A great deal of this book is not about how to make a decision, but rather, whether being able to make one is a good thing after all (and the variations of whether it's better to have more options or few). And while their is some advice on how to make those decisions, it really takes a backseat to the arguments just mentioned.

This book makes for a surprisingly breezy read once you get into it, with the author making numerous references to pop culture (from The Devil Wears Prada to The Matrix), using illustrations as spring-boards into philosophical discussions backed up by scientific data. The philosophy aspect I deeply enjoyed for the most part, but rather than being amazing by new findings I mostly saw reviews of the same kind of information I've seen since grade school and college (perceptions are influenced by biases of various sorts, from the order in which something is perceived to pre-conceived notions about the nature of something). While naturally all of this is based on the same old evolutionary basis that all psychologists parrot back in the textbooks, the author's religious and cultural background form the basis for a more modern look at age-old behavior.

You're Special...Just Like Everyone Else

Before you can dive into a psychological debate as to the merits of a decision-making framework it's a good thing to know yourself. Fortunately our author breaks down the basic workings of a everyone's mind (yes, including yours) so that we understand what makes our decision-making tick. Basically, we all like to think we are objective, intelligent, and above-the-influence.Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

Why did I recommend this book?

This book provide great reflections and ideas about what choose means. It's very interesting to observe that a lot of things that we do without thinking has deeply consequences in... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Eder Sa A Campos

Stopped reading after 30% of the book because all the statistical info...

I lot of interesting info.. but I was expecting a different read.. Stopped reading after 30% of the book because all the statistical info after a while just became boring. Read more

Published 2 months ago by g

Five Stars

GOOD

Published 2 months ago by Flint

Three Stars

A little boing and drawn out

Published 3 months ago by r j r

Read this, immediately.

This book is incredible and is awakening to your perspective more than you could ever imagine.

Published 4 months ago by Travis Wallis

As disgusting as these experiments were they demonstrate something...

First, I agree with the other reviewers that the cruelty of the animal experiments was repugnant. The callousness with which these cruel experiments were described was more... Read more

Published 9 months ago by Deb Barnhardt

Five Stars

Great read

Published 10 months ago by Celena Vella

Five Stars

Very Good!

Published 10 months ago by JayKay

worth the buy and read

I seldom write a long critique on a book because i) I choose the book because it is my decision ii) whatever I write should not alter other people POV iii) to back up with ii),... Read more

Published 13 months ago by David Ip

make me smarter.

Boy this book it made me lots smarter on how i go on and choose what i need to buy .

Published 14 months ago by Rubi Sussman