Neuroscience
Heard another *terrific* TED Talks podcast (and no, I have NO affiliation with Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) at all -- I should be so lucky!) about the value of choice in our lives. From the TED Blog: "Barry Schwartz is a sociology professor at Swarthmore College and author of The Paradox of Choice. In this talk, he persuasively explains how and why the abundance of choice in modern society is actually making us miserable."
My interpretation of what he said is that no choice is bad. Some choice is good. Lots of choices is really bad. Problems with too many choices include: lingering doubt ("maybe I should have bought both the black *and* the navy shoes. Why!! didn't I buy the navy shoes, too?!") and self-blame if the choice doesn't pan out ("darn it! I would have been so much happier if I'd bought the navy shoes instead of the black shoes") -- you can probably imagine more. Or you'll listen and hear Dr. Schwartz' ideas.
That's the interesting cog-sci element. But, as happens so often, cog-sci does meet lib-sci: we offer our patrons so many darn database choices -- it's no wonder they are confused and prefer Google. Not only is the search box simple, but the *choice* of which search engine to use is pretty simple, too.
We should make a greater effort to simplify our patrons' choices. Perhaps this is heresy; listen to the podcast and you might change your mind.
- What Your Choice Of Shoe Says About You
When you meet a stranger, look at his shoes (from Good Advices by REM)The UK's fashionistas are abuzz after the Duchess of Cambridge was pictured at the weekend sporting a £300 pair of Le Chameau wellington boots. Does her shoe choice tell us anything...
- Is Less Always More? Testing The Limits Of The Choice Paradox
When traditional economics claimed that consumers can only gain from having more choice, the supermarkets listened - just look at the explosion in breakfast cereal offerings! But psychology has gone and complicated things by showing that more choice can...
- Want To Make A Complicated Decision? Keep Thinking
"Want to make a complicated decision? Just stop thinking", was one of hundreds of headlines spawned by a study published in 2006 by Ap Dijksterhuis and colleagues. The team of Dutch researchers reported that students made "better" decisions after being...
- Why Did I Do That?
What if free will is an illusion? Perhaps we make up the reasons for our actions retrospectively, tricking ourselves into believing we know why we did what we did, when really our behaviour was involuntary. A new study lends credence to this suggestion...
- Beware Of Dissatisfied Consumers: They Like To Blab
Knowledge @ Wharton talks about marketing from, naturally, a business perspective, but this podcast has lots of implications for libraries, too. Some folks at Wharton conducted a "Retail Customer Dissatisfaction Study" which found that "... only 6% of...
Neuroscience
Choice in the Library
Heard another *terrific* TED Talks podcast (and no, I have NO affiliation with Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) at all -- I should be so lucky!) about the value of choice in our lives. From the TED Blog: "Barry Schwartz is a sociology professor at Swarthmore College and author of The Paradox of Choice. In this talk, he persuasively explains how and why the abundance of choice in modern society is actually making us miserable."
My interpretation of what he said is that no choice is bad. Some choice is good. Lots of choices is really bad. Problems with too many choices include: lingering doubt ("maybe I should have bought both the black *and* the navy shoes. Why!! didn't I buy the navy shoes, too?!") and self-blame if the choice doesn't pan out ("darn it! I would have been so much happier if I'd bought the navy shoes instead of the black shoes") -- you can probably imagine more. Or you'll listen and hear Dr. Schwartz' ideas.
That's the interesting cog-sci element. But, as happens so often, cog-sci does meet lib-sci: we offer our patrons so many darn database choices -- it's no wonder they are confused and prefer Google. Not only is the search box simple, but the *choice* of which search engine to use is pretty simple, too.
We should make a greater effort to simplify our patrons' choices. Perhaps this is heresy; listen to the podcast and you might change your mind.
- What Your Choice Of Shoe Says About You
When you meet a stranger, look at his shoes (from Good Advices by REM)The UK's fashionistas are abuzz after the Duchess of Cambridge was pictured at the weekend sporting a £300 pair of Le Chameau wellington boots. Does her shoe choice tell us anything...
- Is Less Always More? Testing The Limits Of The Choice Paradox
When traditional economics claimed that consumers can only gain from having more choice, the supermarkets listened - just look at the explosion in breakfast cereal offerings! But psychology has gone and complicated things by showing that more choice can...
- Want To Make A Complicated Decision? Keep Thinking
"Want to make a complicated decision? Just stop thinking", was one of hundreds of headlines spawned by a study published in 2006 by Ap Dijksterhuis and colleagues. The team of Dutch researchers reported that students made "better" decisions after being...
- Why Did I Do That?
What if free will is an illusion? Perhaps we make up the reasons for our actions retrospectively, tricking ourselves into believing we know why we did what we did, when really our behaviour was involuntary. A new study lends credence to this suggestion...
- Beware Of Dissatisfied Consumers: They Like To Blab
Knowledge @ Wharton talks about marketing from, naturally, a business perspective, but this podcast has lots of implications for libraries, too. Some folks at Wharton conducted a "Retail Customer Dissatisfaction Study" which found that "... only 6% of...