When you go to the supermarket to buy shampoo and find yourself confronted by 37 options, do you feel excited or exhausted?
We’ve all heard the mantra that more choice is better, but a recent study reminds us that's not necessarily the case.
In fact, it shows that too much choice can backfire, making people feel less in control, less satisfied, and more mentally taxed.
Across two experiments, Katharina Schwarz tested how the number of options affected how people felt when making a decision.
In this case, it was a low stakes decision about choosing which emoji key to press, but by simplifying the task, Schwarz was able to better isolate the effect of choice overload.
Here’s what she found:
- People felt most in control and happiest when choosing from around four options.
- When more options were added, like eight, ten, or sixteen, both pleasure and perceived control started to drop.
- Meanwhile, effort shot up. The more options, the harder it felt to choose.
This adds to the body of research on choice, confirming that more choice does not leave people feeling more in control and comfortable.
So what should you do?
1. Limit options to between three and five
While this research landed on four as the sweet spot to give people a sense of control without overwhelm, it didn’t test odd numbers of choices (like 3, 5, 7, 9 etc).
The beauty of using an odd number is it leaves you with a middle, and this can break a decision deadlock. Depending on your circumstances, I’d recommend using either 3, 4 or 5 options.
2. Use choice architecture to help
If you can’t reduce the total number of options (say, in an online store), use filters, categories, or “most popular” recommendations to present just a few at a time.
3. Respect the difference between actual and perceived control
Just because people can (and maybe say they want to) choose from 100 options doesn’t mean they feel in control. What matters is the experience of choosing, not just the technical freedom to do so.
4. Focus on how a choice feels
Schwarz found that perceived control was tightly linked to how pleasant the choice felt. So if you want people to feel in charge, make the experience enjoyable, not effortful.
Ref: Katharina A. Schwarz, Perceived control and the pleasantness of choosing: How much choice is too much choice?, Current Research in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 8, 2025, 100174, ISSN 2666-5182, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crbeha.2025.100174.
🌟 If you found this interesting, let me know! Buy me a virtual coffee ☕ or forward this email ↗️ to someone who also might like it. Your occasional support means I can keep sharing ideas about behavioural science for free.
🧠 Learn the science of Influencing Action
📈 Be shown exactly what to do to get better results for your small business
Hey, are we connected yet?
