Thinking That Choices Reflect the Self Leads to Maximizing Behavior

Consumers must often employ one of two goals when making choices. They can satisfice and seek any option that meets some minimum standard, or they can maximize and attempt to find the best possible option available. Research suggests that while consumers’ tendency to maximize may vary depending on characteristics of the decision (Simon 1956; Levav, Reinholtz, and Lin 2012), maximizing is also an individual difference (Schwartz, Ward, Monterosso, Lyubomirsky, White, and Lehman 2002). Certain people, known as maximizers, display high chronic levels of maximizing behavior and often endeavor to make the optimal choice for every decision. They engage in this behavior despite the many negative effects caused by maximization, such as less decision satisfaction, higher regret, and longer decision times compared to those who chronically satisfice (Schwartz et al. 2002; Levav et al. 2012). Furthermore, even when maximizing creates objectively better outcomes than satisficing, maximizers are subjectively less happy with the outcome than are satisficers (Iyengar, Wells, and Schwartz 2006). In light of these findings, one could reasonably wonder why consumers would ever be motivated to maximize. We hypothesized that one possible cause of maximization is the belief that one’s choices reflect the self, which is to say that choices are a representation of one’s identity. We specifically predicted that those who strongly believe that one’s choices reflect the self will be more likely to maximize compared to those who only weakly believe this notion. Three experiments provided support for this hypothesis.