Make A Good Decision
We face hundreds of decision each day some are minor like picking cereals while grocery shopping other decisions have a more significant impact on our life. Making the right decisions makes us feel great and proud while a horrible decision screws us over completely. But how do we decide? what are our motivations? We can split decision making up into two parties each following a specific approach. One of them seems to be logical but the other one has actually even better impact.
There are two groups of people maximizers and satisficers. Satisficer always intended to make best personal choice they want something specific and they will get it regardless of the circumstances and problems that come with it. Imagine while looking for a new flat and we want 700 square feet a bathtub and what our fled to be in a specific part of Istanbul. The real estate agent offers us two deals.
Deal number one has 700 square feet and nice bathtub. It's in our desired area and it comes with the rent of 2500 TL a month. Option two on the other hand, is in an equally attractive area also has a bathtub but instead of 700 square feet, it has 1000 square feet and it comes with a price of 2650 TL per month. As a satisficer the decision is obvious. We pick option number one as it meets all our criteria and as a cheaper price. The satisficer neglects the additional space as unnecessary.
We had a baseline and we achieved it. The maximizer on the other hand, tries to always find the best decision not the best decision for his specific circumstance but the best and cheapest decision in general we have again the same goal. We want 700 feet in a spesific area and we want a lovely bathtub but now we are trying to maximize.
We want the best bang for our buck. We don't really need to 300 additional square feet but the price per square feet it is so much better that we can't resist. We want to maximize our decision and we pick option 2 for 2650. The total rent we pay is more expensive but we made a better deal maximize us crave the maximum benefit.
In the previous example, we had two options one with 700 square feet and one 1000 but let's face it. Most decisions are complex instead of two potential options we have 5 or 10 or even 15 options to choose from. Additionally, maximizers will do more research, they will look for more options, they want to make the best deal.
This can be advantage but also disadvantage at the same time.Satisficers have two distinct advantages. The first advantages of the satisficer is obviously the satisfaction. There are no regrets or anything. Once the decision is made, the satisficer is happy with it.
They accomplished the desired goal which is important and everything else plays only a minor role. The maximizer on the other hand might have some regrets. If you've ever tried to make the best bang for your buck and you've probably experienced the following. You conduct your research you check different online shops, you check their statistics and you come to your conclusion, decide and finally buy a specific product.
For a moment you are happy but after just a couple days you begin to question your decision. Maybe there would have been a better deal and you go online and just to find out that the product is on sale right now. If you would have waited two more days, you could have saved 20 percent but you didn't. And now you regret deciding that quickly you regret spending so much.
You become unhappy with the decision you've made but even if the product wouldn't be on sale, this might be still bothering us and that's the first problem of the maximizer and benefit of the satisficer.
The second aspect deals with the effort, we don't need to be a genius to see that Maximizer spent tremendously more time in finding the perfect deal and this might be counterproductive. We spend a great deal of time on a single product and at the end we might only be saving a couple bucks conducting one hour of research just to save 20 bucks is not helpful.
If we normally earn 40 bucks an hour, it is paradox. We try to get the best deal but we actually become incredibly inefficient. We've talked about saving money the entire time or getting the best deal because that's easy to explain. Nevertheless, it applies to all kinds of decisions. Choosing your girlfriend, a profession or anything else decisions are everywhere.
What I am personally taking from this, we should combine the two approaches. Be the maximizer for the important life decisions or for incredibly expensive products like cars or real estate but be a satisficer for minor decisions it can save time energy and we remain a little happier. It might be hard to turn off our objective sense to analyze everything but we can give it a try and maybe we even enjoy it.
Thank you so much for reading my post. Please stay tuned for more.
