Experiments | The Jam Study by Iyengar & Lepper (2000)

testing the amount of jam flavors offered within a tasting, in relation to participants' purchasing behavior

—a set up of 2 tasting booths of jam
—24 flavors vs. 6 flavors

A

The experiment was conducted at a local grocery store on two different days. Day one tested the Extended-Flavors group (24); day two included the Limited-Flavors group (6). On the first day, 242 total customers were in store, and 145 (60%) of them stopped for a tasting. Out of the 145 tasters, only 3% purchased a jam afterwards. On the second day, there were 260 total customers, where 104 (40%) stopped at the booth and 30% of them bought a jam after tasting.

B

The results show that while more choice is definitely more appealing initially, it isn’t effective later on. This can be seen with the shoppers who were exposed to a lesser amount of flavors (the Limited Group of 6), who had a much easier time deciding and following through on purchasing one or more jams.

Jam Study

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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.