Maximization (psychology)

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Maximization is a style of decision-making characterized by seeking the best option through an exhaustive search through alternatives. It is contrasted with satisficing, in which individuals evaluate options until they find one that is "good enough".

Contents

Definition

The distinction between "maximizing" and "satisficing" was first made by Herbert A. Simon in 1956. [1] [2] Simon noted that although fields like economics posited maximization or "optimizing" as the rational method of making decisions, humans often lack the cognitive resources or the environmental affordances to maximize. Simon instead formulated an approach known as bounded rationality, which he also referred to as satisficing. This approach was taken to be adaptive and, indeed, necessary, given our cognitive limitations. Thus, satisficing was taken to be a universal of human cognition.

Although Simon's work on bounded rationality was influential and can be seen as the origin of behavioral economics, the distinction between maximizing and satisficing gained new life 40 years later in psychology. Schwartz, Ward, Monterosso, Lyubomirsky, White, and Lehman (2002) defined maximization as an individual difference, arguing that some people were more likely than others to engage in a comprehensive search for the best option. [3] Thus, instead of conceptualizing satisficing as a universal principle of human cognitive abilities, Schwartz et al. demonstrated that some individuals were more likely than others to display this style of decision-making.

Based on the work of Schwartz et al. (2002), much of the literature on maximization has defined maximization as comprising three major components: [4]

Since these components were identified, the majority of the research on maximization has focused on which of these components are relevant (or most relevant) to the definition of maximizing. Researchers have variously argued that decision difficulty is irrelevant to defining maximizing, [5] that high standards is the only relevant component, [6] and that high standards is the only irrelevant component. [7] Many of these attempts to define maximizing have resulted in the creation of new psychological scales to measure the trait.

Recently, in a theoretical paper Cheek and Schwartz (2016) proposed a two-component model of maximization, defining maximization as the goal of choosing the best option, pursued by the strategy of searching exhaustively through alternatives. [8] Along similar lines, Hughes and Scholer (2017) proposed that researchers could differentiate between the goals and strategies of maximizers. However, they argued that the high standards goal is central to the definition of maximizing, but that some maximizers engage in adaptive or maladaptive strategies in order to pursue that goal. They showed that individuals with high standards could be distinguished by the use of the alternative search strategy, and that this strategy in particular predicted more negative emotions on a decision task. [9]

Outcomes

Initial research on maximizing showed uniformly negative outcomes associated with chronic maximizing tendencies. Such tendencies were associated with lower happiness, self-esteem, and life satisfaction; [3] with greater depression and regret; [3] with lower satisfaction with choices; [10] [11] with greater perfectionism; [3] [12] and with greater decision-making confusion, commitment anxiety, and rumination. [13] One study by Iyengar, Wells, and Schwartz (2006) tracked job seekers and found that although maximizers were able to find jobs with starting salaries 20% higher than satisficers, they were less satisfied with both the job search process and the job they were about to start. [11] Thus, although maximizers were able to find objectively better options, they ended up subjectively worse off as a result.

However, as disagreement over the definition of maximizing grew, research began to show diverging effects: some negative, some neutral, and some positive. Diab, Gillespie, and Highhouse (2008), for example, contested that maximizing actually was not related to lower life satisfaction, and was not related to indecisiveness, avoidance, or neuroticism. [6] [ clarification needed ] Other studies showed maximizing to be associated with higher self-efficacy, optimism, and intrinsic motivation; [5] and with higher life satisfaction and positive affect. [14]

Much of this disagreement can ultimately be ascribed to the different scales that were created to measure maximizing. But research on the three components mentioned above (high standards, alternative search, and decision difficulty) found that these components themselves predicted differing outcomes. High standards has generally shown little association with negative outcomes, and evidence of association with positive outcomes. [4] [7] [14] [15] [16] In contrast, alternative search and decision difficulty have shown much stronger associations with the negative outcomes listed above. Thus, the question of whether maximizing is adaptive or maladaptive may ultimately depend on which of these components one sees as essential to the definition of maximizing itself.

Limited research exists on other psychological constructs to which maximizing is related. However, several studies have shown maximizing to be associated with perfectionism, [12] [17] and Nenkov et al. (2008) qualified this relationship as being true primarily for the high standards component. [4] Some research has also linked maximizing to high need for cognition, again primarily with the high standards component. [4] [5] [16] Finally, research examining the association between maximizing and personality dimensions of the Big Five personality model have found high standards to be associated with high conscientiousness and decision difficulty with low conscientiousness. [18] Alternative search has also been associated with high neuroticism, and high standards has been associated with high openness to experience. [14]

Scales used to measure

Given the disagreement over the definition of maximizing, as well as attempts to increase the reliability of existing measures, several scales have been created to measure maximization. The list below identifies the name of the scale, as well as the components it measures:

Cheek and Schwartz (2016) [8] reviewed the literature on the measurement of maximization and proposed that researchers interested in studying individual differences in maximization should measure two constructs: the maximization goal and the maximization strategy. They recommended that researchers use the 7-item Maximizing Tendency Scale published by Dalal et al. (2015) to measure the maximization goal. They also tentatively recommended that researchers use the alternative search subscale of the Maximization Inventory, but noted that future research should continue to refine the measurement of the maximization strategy given psychometric concerns.

See also

Related Research Articles

A heuristic or heuristic technique is any approach to problem solving that employs a pragmatic method that is not fully optimized, perfected, or rationalized, but is nevertheless "good enough" as an approximation or attribute substitution. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision.

Heuristic reasoning is often based on induction, or on analogy[.] [...] Induction is the process of discovering general laws [...] Induction tries to find regularity and coherence [...] Its most conspicuous instruments are generalization, specialization, analogy. [...] Heuristic discusses human behavior in the face of problems [...that have been] preserved in the wisdom of proverbs.

Bounded rationality is the idea that rationality is limited when individuals make decisions, and under these limitations, rational individuals will select a decision that is satisfactory rather than optimal.

Satisficing is a decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. The term satisficing, a portmanteau of satisfy and suffice, was introduced by Herbert A. Simon in 1956, although the concept was first posited in his 1947 book Administrative Behavior. Simon used satisficing to explain the behavior of decision makers under circumstances in which an optimal solution cannot be determined. He maintained that many natural problems are characterized by computational intractability or a lack of information, both of which preclude the use of mathematical optimization procedures. He observed in his Nobel Prize in Economics speech that "decision makers can satisfice either by finding optimum solutions for a simplified world, or by finding satisfactory solutions for a more realistic world. Neither approach, in general, dominates the other, and both have continued to co-exist in the world of management science".

Closure or need for closure (NFC), used interchangeably with need for cognitive closure (NFCC), are social psychological terms that describe an individual's desire for a clear, firm answer or peaceful resolution to a question or problem to avert ambiguity.

Behavioral economics is the study of the psychological, cognitive, emotional, cultural and social factors involved in the decisions of individuals or institutions, and how these decisions deviate from those implied by classical economic theory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Decision-making</span> Cognitive process to choose a course of action or belief

In psychology, decision-making is regarded as the cognitive process resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of action among several possible alternative options. It could be either rational or irrational. The decision-making process is a reasoning process based on assumptions of values, preferences and beliefs of the decision-maker. Every decision-making process produces a final choice, which may or may not prompt action.

A choice is the range of different things from which a being can choose. The arrival at a choice may incorporate motivators and models.

Perfectionism, in psychology, is a broad personality trait characterized by a person's concern with striving for flawlessness and perfection and is accompanied by critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations. It is best conceptualized as a multidimensional and multilayered personality characteristic, and initially some psychologists thought that there were many positive and negative aspects.

Political psychology is an interdisciplinary academic field, dedicated to understanding politics, politicians and political behavior from a psychological perspective, and psychological processes using socio-political perspectives. The relationship between politics and psychology is considered bidirectional, with psychology being used as a lens for understanding politics and politics being used as a lens for understanding psychology. As an interdisciplinary field, political psychology borrows from a wide range of disciplines, including: anthropology, economics, history, international relations, journalism, media, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Need for cognition</span> Psychology concept

The need for cognition (NFC), in psychology, is a personality variable reflecting the extent to which individuals are inclined towards effortful cognitive activities.

Neuroticism is a personality trait associated with negative emotions. It is one of the Big Five traits. Individuals with high scores on neuroticism are more likely than average to experience such feelings as anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, pessimism, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness. Such people are thought to respond worse to stressors and are more likely to interpret ordinary situations, such as minor frustrations, as appearing hopelessly difficult. Their behavioral responses may include procrastination, substance use, and other maladaptive behaviors, which may temporarily aid in relieving negative emotions and generating positive ones.

Acquiescence bias, also known as agreement bias, is a category of response bias common to survey research in which respondents have a tendency to select a positive response option or indicate a positive connotation disproportionately more frequently. Respondents do so without considering the content of the question or their 'true' preference. Acquiescence is sometimes referred to as "yea-saying" and is the tendency of a respondent to agree with a statement when in doubt. Questions affected by acquiescence bias take the following format: a stimulus in the form of a statement is presented, followed by 'agree/disagree,' 'yes/no' or 'true/false' response options. For example, a respondent might be presented with the statement "gardening makes me feel happy," and would then be expected to select either 'agree' or 'disagree.' Such question formats are favoured by both survey designers and respondents because they are straightforward to produce and respond to. The bias is particularly prevalent in the case of surveys or questionnaires that employ truisms as the stimuli, such as: "It is better to give than to receive" or "Never a lender nor a borrower be". Acquiescence bias can introduce systematic errors that affect the validity of research by confounding attitudes and behaviours with the general tendency to agree, which can result in misguided inference. Research suggests that the proportion of respondents who carry out this behaviour is between 10% and 20%.

<i>The Paradox of Choice</i> 2004 book by Barry Schwartz

The Paradox of Choice – Why More Is Less is a book written by American psychologist Barry Schwartz and first published in 2004 by Harper Perennial. In the book, Schwartz argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers. The book analyses the behavior of different types of people. This book argues that the dramatic explosion in choice—from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs—has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution and how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse.

Overchoice or choice overload is the paradoxical phenomenon that choosing between a large variety of options can be detrimental to decision making processes. The term was first introduced by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book, Future Shock.

Heuristics is the process by which humans use mental shortcuts to arrive at decisions. Heuristics are simple strategies that humans, animals, organizations, and even machines use to quickly form judgments, make decisions, and find solutions to complex problems. Often this involves focusing on the most relevant aspects of a problem or situation to formulate a solution. While heuristic processes are used to find the answers and solutions that are most likely to work or be correct, they are not always right or the most accurate. Judgments and decisions based on heuristics are simply good enough to satisfy a pressing need in situations of uncertainty, where information is incomplete. In that sense they can differ from answers given by logic and probability.

In psychology, economics and philosophy, preference is a technical term usually used in relation to choosing between alternatives. For example, someone prefers A over B if they would rather choose A than B. Preferences are central to decision theory because of this relation to behavior. Some methods such as Ordinal Priority Approach use preference relation for decision-making. As connative states, they are closely related to desires. The difference between the two is that desires are directed at one object while preferences concern a comparison between two alternatives, of which one is preferred to the other.

Core self-evaluations (CSE) represent a stable personality trait which encompasses an individual's subconscious, fundamental evaluations about themselves, their own abilities and their own control. People who have high core self-evaluations will think positively of themselves and be confident in their own abilities. Conversely, people with low core self-evaluations will have a negative appraisal of themselves and will lack confidence. The concept of core self-evaluations was first examined by Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997) and involves four personality dimensions: locus of control, neuroticism, generalized self-efficacy, and self-esteem. The trait developed as a dispositional predictor of job satisfaction, but has expanded to predict a variety of other outcomes. Core self-evaluations are particularly important because they represent a personality trait which will remain consistent over time. Furthermore, the way in which people appraise themselves using core self-evaluations has the ability to predict positive work outcomes, specifically, job satisfaction and job performance. These relationships have inspired increasing amounts of research on core self-evaluations and suggest valuable implications about the importance this trait may have for organizations.

Social heuristics are simple decision making strategies that guide people's behavior and decisions in the social environment when time, information, or cognitive resources are scarce. Social environments tend to be characterised by complexity and uncertainty, and in order to simplify the decision-making process, people may use heuristics, which are decision making strategies that involve ignoring some information or relying on simple rules of thumb.

In behavioural sciences, social rationality is a type of decision strategy used in social contexts, in which a set of simple rules is applied in complex and uncertain situations.

Debiasing is the reduction of bias, particularly with respect to judgment and decision making. Biased judgment and decision making is that which systematically deviates from the prescriptions of objective standards such as facts, logic, and rational behavior or prescriptive norms. Biased judgment and decision making exists in consequential domains such as medicine, law, policy, and business, as well as in everyday life. Investors, for example, tend to hold onto falling stocks too long and sell rising stocks too quickly. Employers exhibit considerable discrimination in hiring and employment practices, and some parents continue to believe that vaccinations cause autism despite knowing that this link is based on falsified evidence. At an individual level, people who exhibit less decision bias have more intact social environments, reduced risk of alcohol and drug use, lower childhood delinquency rates, and superior planning and problem solving abilities.

References

  1. ↑ Simon, H. A. (1955). A behavioral model of rational choice. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 59, 99–118.
  2. ↑ Simon, H. A. (1956). Rational choice and the structure of the environment. Psychological Review, 63(2), 129–138.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Schwartz, B., Ward, A., Monterosso, J., Lyubomirsky, S., White, K., & Lehman, D. R. (2002). Maximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(5), 1178–1197. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.83.5.1178
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Nenkov, G. Y., Morrin, M., Ward, A., Schwartz, B., & Hulland, J. (2008). A short form of the Maximization Scale: Factor structure, reliability and validity studies. Judgment and Decision Making, 3(5), 371–388.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Lai, L. (2010). Maximizing without difficulty: A modified maximizing scale and its correlates. Judgment and Decision Making, 5(3), 164–175.
  6. 1 2 3 Diab, D. L., Gillespie, M. A., & Highhouse, S. (2008). Are maximizers really unhappy? The measurement of maximizing tendency. Judgment and Decision Making, 3(5), 364–370.
  7. 1 2 Rim, H. Bin, Turner, B. M., Betz, N. E., & Nygren, T. E. (2011). Studies of the dimensionality, correlates, and meaning of measures of the maximizing tendency. Judgment and Decision Making, 6(6), 565–579.
  8. 1 2 Cheek, Nathan, N.; Schwartz, Barry (2016). "On the meaning and measurement of maximization" (PDF). Judgment and Decision Making. 11 (2): 126–146. doi:10.1017/S1930297500007257.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ↑ Hughes, J., & Scholer, A. A. (2017). When wanting the best goes right or wrong: Distinguishing between adaptive and maladaptive maximization. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(4), 570–583. doi:10.1177/0146167216689065
  10. ↑ Dar-Nimrod, I., Rawn, C. D., Lehman, D. R., & Schwartz, B. (2009). The maximization paradox: The costs of seeking alternatives. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 631–635. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2009.01.007
  11. 1 2 Iyengar, S. S., Wells, R. E., & Schwartz, B. (2006). Doing better but feeling worse: Looking for the "best" job undermines satisfaction. Psychological Science, 17(2), 143–150. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01677.x
  12. 1 2 Chang, E. C., Lin, N. J., Herringshaw, A. J., Sanna, L. J., Fabian, C. G., Perera, M. J., & Marchenko, V. V. (2011). Understanding the link between perfectionism and adjustment in college students: Examining the role of maximizing. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(7), 1074–1078. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2011.01.027
  13. ↑ Paivandy, S., Bullock, E. E., Reardon, R. C., & Kelly, F. D. (2008). The effects of decision-making style and cognitive thought patterns on negative career thoughts. Journal of Career Assessment, 16(4), 474–488. doi:10.1177/1069072708318904
  14. 1 2 3 Purvis, A., Howell, R. T., & Iyer, R. (2011). Exploring the role of personality in the relationship between maximization and well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(3), 370–375. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.10.023
  15. ↑ Carrillat, F. A., Ladik, D. M., & Legoux, R. (2011). When the decision ball keeps rolling: An investigation of the Sisyphus effect among maximizing consumers. Marketing Letters, 22(3), 283–296. doi:10.1007/s11002-010-9125-y
  16. 1 2 3 Weinhardt, J. M., Morse, B. J., Chimeli, J., & Fisher, J. (2012). An item response theory and factor analytic examination of two prominent maximizing tendency scales. Judgment and Decision Making, 7(5), 644–658.
  17. ↑ Bergman, A. J., Nyland, J. E., & Burns, L. R. (2007). Correlates with perfectionism and the utility of a dual process model. Personality and Individual Differences, 43(2), 389–399. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2006.12.007
  18. ↑ Giacopelli, N. M., Simpson, K. M., Dalal, R. S., Randolph, K. L., & Holland, S. J. (2013). Maximizing as a predictor of job satisfaction and performance: A tale of three scales. Judgment and Decision Making, 8(4), 448–469.
  19. ↑ Lai, L. (2011). Maximizing and customer loyalty: Are maximizers less loyal? Judgment and Decision Making, 6(4), 307–313.
  20. ↑ Turner, B. M., Rim, H. Bin, Betz, N. E., & Nygren, T. E. (2012). The Maximization Inventory. Judgment and Decision Making, 7(1), 48–60.
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