Experiments | Speed Dating by Lenton and Francesconi (2011)

testing Choice quantity and choice variety on dating behavior

—a total of 84 speed dating events
—Rounds of 3 min. dates
—1,868 female & 1,870 male daters
—48 hours to decide on next date (yes-no)

A

The experiment found and concluded that the ideal number of speed-dating rounds that each participant engaged in was, on average, 23 dates. This is the “sweet spot” because it resulted in more success (more participants wanted to continue dating after each round).

B

During the experiment, researches checked how variety (i.e. age, height, occupation, education, religion, and smoking habits) affected the participants' dating decisions. When increasing the diversity of daters within the group, the results showed that there were fewer matches between participants or sometimes none at all. There was greater confusion caused by choice overload, rather than by “pickiness” of the participants. This resulted in an overall negative impact on the success rate of the dates.

Speed Dating

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Designed & built by: Zohar Pomerantz |  Special thanks to: Assaf Dov Cohen and Polar Team

The belief that more choice, and so more freedom, is a good thing is actually incorrect —

Choice is a real struggle when there's so much of it. The more options to choose from simply leaves us feeling overwhelmed, while having direct consequences on our mental wellbeing. This can lead to an increase in anxiety and depression, in decreased satisfaction, and regret over the choices we have already made. This issue is most commonly known as choice overload or “The Burden of Choice.”

The Project:

This project was born from personal experience, of wanting to learn more about my own decision anxiety and the reasons for why I suffer from it. Off the start, while researching the subject, I began to realize just how many other people are influenced by this same anxiety, yet feel alone in it, unaware of the existence of 'choice overload.' More so than that, while educating myself on the subject I began to feel disorientated - all the information available was scattered among different platforms, hidden in tiresome textual formats that would cause the average person to abandon the effort of learning altogether. “The Burden of Choice” was designed as a solution to these problems, creating a visual platform to expose users to the issue— providing a place to experience and learn more about it, while giving the issue the proper acknowledgment and recognition that it deserves.