- The Trailblazers: Sheena Iyengar & Jasmin Sethi I. Magine blindfolding yourself and trying to do your daily chores in a dark world. Now imagine blindfolding yourself and managing to get a perfect SAT score, going on to Harvard and Stanford to get an MA, JD and a Ph D, becoming a lawyer in a topnotch law firm, a business professor in an Ivy League school, traveling all over the world.
- Iyengar is the S.T. Lee Professor of Business in the Management Department at Columbia Business School, widely and best known as an expert on choice. Her research focuses on the many facets of decision making, including: why people want choice, what affects how and what we choose, and how we can improve our decision making.
Our third choice in the matter of choosing, comes from the clear vision of blind author and business professor at Columbia University, Sheena Iyengar. While both the attractions of choice and its. Sheena formerly Sethi Iyengar was a NFB national scholarship winner in 1987, and she graduated from the Louisiana Center for the Blind in 1988. In a recent conversation she attributed some of her success to the solid blindness skills training and sound philosophy of blindness she acquired from her early involvement with the Federation.
June 2010
features
An Interview with Sheena Iyengar
If Sheena Iyengar’s name seems familiar, it’s probably because you read about her research on consumer choice work in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. Iyengar, a professor at Columbia Business School, now has her own book out. The Art of Choosing deals with choice in all its aspects, across fields as varied as music, art, and medicine, and draws on everything from pop culture to brain imaging technology. Iyengar also mines her personal life for this book, and her choices -- to study psychology at Stanford, to marry a man from outside her religion, to use sighted language although she is blind -- are at least as fascinating as her research findings.
I interviewed Iyengar via email and telephone. We talked about her writing and her research, and whether an expert on choice might ever toss a coin.
Can you tell us about the conception of, and the motivation behind, this book?
This book looks at three questions: Why do we choose -- where does choice get its power from? How do we make choices -- what are the various factors that influence how and what we choose? Given all this, how can we choose better?
Can you tell us about the conception of, and the motivation behind, this book?
This book looks at three questions: Why do we choose -- where does choice get its power from? How do we make choices -- what are the various factors that influence how and what we choose? Given all this, how can we choose better?
I’ve written a lot of academic papers, and the only people who read those are academics. As an academic, you almost have an obligation to take your knowledge and disseminate it. So I felt that I should try and write a book for everyone. Of course, the probability of failing when you try to write a book for everyone is the highest. But I figured I should take that risk -- otherwise, why write it?
Malcolm Gladwell was the one who encouraged me, and he gave me some very good advice. He said you really need to tell a story, and use that story to unveil your idea. That works for him, to have each chapter about one story. But I essentially did the opposite, I tried to tell a story about an idea in every chapter. So I was influenced by his advice, but I used it in a different way. But Malcolm writes much much much better [than I do]. I’m amazed at how effortlessly he writes, and if I could write that way, I’d be thrilled.
One of my major a-ha moments after reading this book was the realization that our capacity for self-delusion is infinite. We make poor choices, and then cherry-pick data to further support our (wrong) decisions. Is there truly any hope for us to wise up?
Yes. Ninety percent of the time, we should use reasoned analysis. When we do, though, we still need to really watch out for those decision-making biases that stem from our gut. So, ask yourself, why do I want this? Why am I thinking this way? Did I consider the alternatives? Even when we’re doing a reasoned analysis of the options, our gut emotions can end up playing a role in the process if we’re not careful.
If reasoned analysis works ninety percent of the time, are there occasions when it might actually work to go with our gut?
That’s a great question. Your gut answers the question “How do I feel about this right now?” That’s the only question it answers. It doesn’t answer the question “How am I going to feel about this tomorrow?” That’s its inherent limitation.
Your reason enables you to do the pros and cons analysis. Provided you are not allowing your biases to get involved, your reason answers the question of what you should want, what would be good for you, in the future or even at the present moment. But it doesn’t tell you what would make you happy. The question we want answered, and what we don’t have the tools to answer, is “What would make us happy tomorrow?”
So I suppose you need a third thing here. You have to stop looking inside, and you have to start looking outside. In addition to your gut and your reason, you have to look around and see what other people are doing, see who is happy. And because we’re not as different from other people as we think we are, chances are, we’ll be happy if they are happy. That’s really the three-step process for deciding something important in your life. So if you are trying to decide which job offer to accept, your gut might tell you which one you like, your reason tells you which one you should like, and looking at other people and seeing who is happy in job X, and what it is that they’re happy with -- all this will tell you which job will make you happier.
I’ve always thought I was different. Really. But your studies show very few people are truly unique; I now realize I’m actually part of the vast herd of “those who think they are different.”
It’s true that studies (my own and others’) have shown that people are often not as unique relative to others as they might believe themselves to be. But that’s not necessarily something to be disheartened about. There’s comfort in the fact that in many ways we are similar to other people; it means we can learn from each other’s experiences.
Sheena, do you ever just toss a coin?
Sure, I regularly toss a coin when I’m picking the nail polish to put on my nails, or what to order from a restaurant menu, for example. Or I ask people to just choose something for me. I tend to be really choosy about when I choose, and I’m constantly asking myself: “How much choice do I really need? Is it really worth it to me to make this choice, or is it a distraction from my more important goals?”
Can we really be choosy choosers when it comes to branding? You mention in your book, for instance, that Lancome’s Mousse Makeup and Maybelline’s Mousse Foundation are made in the same factory, are nearly identical in their composition, and that experts have detected no difference in their performance, but L’Oreal, which owns both brands, sells the first at $37 and the other at $8.99. You cite several such examples of nearly identical products being branded and priced very differently. All this almost suggests to me that we consumers are often the dupes of these large corporations.
Are companies trying to manipulate us? Yes. Companies use branding to create differentiation when there’s very little actual difference because the market is so crowded.
Should we worry about being manipulated? Only if it’s in a domain that’s important to us. You need to decide what’s important to you, and that list can’t be long. For those things, you really pull out everything, use your gut, reasoned analysis, gather information from other people. For other things, find the acceptable one. If that means you’re being manipulated, so be it.
But companies need to give a lot more thought to how they should be branding in a more honest way. It’s good for the customer and for them -- they really don’t need to add irrelevant options. One of the things they can sell to the customer is that every choice we offer really counts, that it is meaningfully different from other choices.
And I was wondering about the implications of publishing such findings in your book. As a person who is intimately connected with the business world, are you breaking any sort of taboo here, or is this just business as usual?
There hasn’t been any backlash from these companies -- they ignore the findings that they don’t think are interesting or useful, I guess!
One of the most fascinating studies in your book mentions cultural scripts -- that people from collectivist cultures (such as China) prioritize the well-being of the community or family in their decision-making process, while those from individualist cultures (such as America) prioritize the individual’s right to happiness. How do immigrants who move from one culture to another fare while making decisions? Does your own experience as the daughter of Sikh (Indian) parents in North America provide any insights into the latter?
I can only speak to my own experience here, but I did notice from a very young age the contrast between my experiences growing up as the daughter of Sikh immigrants, and my experiences in the American school system. As the daughter of Sikh immigrants, I spoke Punjabi at home, I ate Punjabi food, and I went to the Sikh temple on Friday night, Saturday night, and all day Sunday. I practiced the 5 “K”’s, including never cutting my hair. I lived in a world in which the marriage of my parents and of the parents’ of all the other children at temple had been arranged, and our parents were heavily involved in all of our choices.
At the same time, though, I was part of another world. I went to school in New York. There, everyone was supposed to decide for themselves how to dress, what they wanted and didn’t want, what career they would pursue, and whom they would marry. These two worlds didn’t just comprise two different languages, or two different sets of rules, but offered two entirely different narratives about how to live one’s life. The first emphasized the importance of knowing your duties and fulfilling your responsibilities. The second emphasized the importance of identifying and acting upon your personal preferences. They were both narratives about the role choice should play in our lives: what we can choose versus what is decided by destiny, who chooses, the guiding principles to use when you choose, and in turn, what to expect from the choice. Drawing upon my experiences in these two different worlds led me to many of the questions that I’ve endeavored to examine as part of my research.
Can these two narratives about different ways to live one’s life run in parallel? Or is conflict inevitable?
No, they run up against each other, and you have to find some form of reconciliation. That’s why the narrative feeling becomes so salient to a bicultural person, because this conflict must be resolved. Some choose one or the other narrative, and some choose different narratives for different domains, and some create a new narrative for themselves. There is no one optimal path here. You have to judge if there’s a fit between the person’s narrative and the choices they ultimately make -- if there’s a fit, it’ll help them accomplish their goals. So the only way you can judge this narrative is through its functionality.
It’s remarkable how your daily life provides so much material for your research -- everything from your husband’s iPhone purchase to your visit to the manicurist seems to flow into your work, to form the basis for a new juicy experiment.
Yes, this is true. I love the fact that there’s a synergy between everything I do, whether I’m in the office, traveling, or spending time with my family. That’s what I most enjoy about studying choice.
Your previous writing has all been academic. Was it difficult to transition into writing for a popular audience?
Sheena Iyengar Ted Talk Summary
Yes. I tried to keep “Is it interesting?” as my criterion, but of course, that is very subjective. Inevitably, I wrote like an academic. I had a number of research assistants reading my work, telling me if it was boring. You know that New York Times article describing how I decorate my home using the consensus method? [Iyengar is blind, and her strategy of using consensus to make choices on matters dealing with visual appeal was described in detail in a profile in The New York Times.] I used a very similar method for writing, I got a lot of opinions, and of course, whenever you have a group of people, they inevitably disagree. My first rule of thumb was to try and get everybody to like it. The Matrix [Iyengar uses the blue pill/red pill scene from the film The Matrix to illustrate a theory about choice] really generated differing opinions, people either loved it or hated it. But I take every single opinion very seriously -- it’s a big thing with me.
You’ve opted to use words like “look” and “see” in your writing. Could you tell me about your use of “sighted language”?
I don’t know that it’s something I strategically think about; it’s really something I do automatically now. Using that style of language helps me better communicate in a very visually driven world.
You've quoted Joan Didion and Sinclair Lewis, amongst others, in your book. Could you talk about your literary influences?
I tend to read a lot of popular nonfiction. Right now on my iPod I have Michael Lewis’s new book [The Big Short], and Warby Sebastian Junger. I’m inspired by Dan Gilbert [Professor of Psychology at Harvard, and the author of Stumbling on Happiness], he’s my role model. I was an English minor as an undergraduate, and while I was in school, I really fell for the works of many of the classic poets: Yeats, Tennyson, Wordsworth, Longfellow, Frost. I do love drawing on those kinds of works for my current research and writing. It works nicely, I think, because choice itself cuts across so many disciplinary boundaries. I actually tried my hand at creative writing and poetry as an undergrad, but I ended up realizing that creative writing wasn’t the career for me.
Why was that?
I wrote some pretty bad stories as an undergrad. I had some crazy ideas. I remember one short story I wrote was about a table with a scar… dumbest story ever. I took a bunch of poetry courses… I was pretty bad at that. I did seem to do well at essays though.
Do you think you might try other kinds of writing someday?
Who knows... I think there is a good book to be written out there about the relation between the blind and the sighted, but I don’t know if I would ever know enough to write that well. Maybe when I’m older though. As an academic, you spend so much time in writing, and I am interested in writing, but I don’t think I was ever meant to write a novel.
The book ideas that I would probably work on going forward are related to my research. A book on thinking globally -- we operate in an ever-changing globalized world. Another has to do with the psychology of money. How does money really affect us? It’s not just something we use to buy things for ourselves, but affects us in lots of different ways.
An astrologer has predicted that your book will “far exceed your expectations.” Has this forecast proved accurate, or is it too early to tell? And if it is/does prove accurate, might you, for all your expertise on choice, become a believer in pre-destination?
Does he have the ability to predict -- maybe, I don’t know. In the case of my book, I think it’s too early to tell.
The appeal of astrology or discussions of faith and destiny is that it gives people comfort. It’s like reading the last page of a book, to know where you’re going. It does relieve you from some of the burden of choice -- destiny makes you adjust and deal with what is. So if you think of marriage in terms of destiny, most of your choices are around adjusting to your destiny, as opposed to saying “this is what I really want.” And I think there is some real beauty in that.
But I think we need to balance this with choice. There’s beauty to be gained from thinking about your life in terms of choice, because when things aren’t going well, what we have is choice. It’s really the only thing we have that we can turn to, to possibly make a difference in our lives.
Summary
Gladwell tells the story of Vic Braden, one of the world’s top tennis coaches. In tennis, players are given two chances to successfully hit a serve, and missing on the second chance means that they have double-faulted. Braden realized that he always knew when a player was about to double-fault, even before they make contact with the ball. Something in the way tennis players hold themselves, or the way they toss the ball, or the fluidity of their motion triggers something in his unconscious. He thin-slices the information and just knows. Much to his chagrin, Braden is unable to figure how exactly he knows.
Gladwell says that Braden’s frustration is the second critical fact about the thoughts and decisions that originate in the unconscious. Snap judgments and rapid cognition take place behind a lock door, and Braden tried looking inside that room, staying up at night attempting to figure out what it is in the delivery of a tennis serve that stimulates his judgment – but he was unable to do that.
Gladwell gives a hypothetical situation in which a professor asks a student to come see him in his office. In order to get to their office, it is necessary to walk down a long corridor and then sit at the table. In front of the student is a sheet of paper with a list of five-word sets, and the professor prompts the student to make a grammatical four-word sentence as quickly as possible out of each set. It includes a set of words such as “Florida,” “worried,” and “lonely” that primed the adaptive unconscious to think about the state of being old. But the unconscious has taken this suggestion of old age so seriously that by the time the student has finished and walked down the corridor, he acted old and walked slowly.
A psychologist named John Bargh created this test, and he and others have done numerous variations of it, which have shown what goes on behind the locked door of the human unconscious. It is important to note that priming is not like brainwashing. Nonetheless the effects of priming are not insignificant. Two psychologists also carried out a version of this priming test in which black college students taking the Graduate Record Examination were asked to identify their race on a pretest questionnaire. The study revealed that test scores went down dramatically when students were prompted to select their race beforehand.
Gladwell's next example is of a speed dating event set in a Manhattan bar. In the event, each man would have 6 minutes of conversation with each woman, select whom they liked, and if they matched up, they would be notified of the other person’s email address within 24 hours. He cites speed dating as an example of dating distilled to a simple snap judgment, and argues that dating is an instance in which almost everyone is able to thin-slice and make accurate judgments quickly.
Two professors at Columbia, Sheena Iyengar and Raymond Fisman, have discovered that if people are made to explain themselves, something strange happens: when they compared what speed-daters said they want with what they are actually attracted to in the moment, they found that those two things often do not match.
When asking people to explain their thinking, especially thinking that comes from the unconscious, it is necessary to be careful in how to interpret their answers. People learn by example and by direct experience because there are limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction. However there are times when people demand an explanation when an explanation is not really possible, and, doing so can have serious consequences (as Gladwell will further show).
People’s unconscious mind sometimes scans for possibilities and processes every conceivable clue whenever the conscious mind is stumped. When the unconscious finds the answer, it guides them rather silently and definitively, to the solution.
Sheena's Iyengar Blind
Analysis
Gladwell focuses here on the inability of people to understand how they think. He picks apart his interviewees' minds, and something of a contradiction arises: Gladwell asserts that humans should not always try to open the locked door that is the adaptive unconscious, but on the other hand, he tries incredibly hard to figure out what exactly is the nature of this part of the brain.
Sheena Iyengar Choices
Gladwell says that if humans are to learn to improve the quality of the decisions they make, they need to accept the mysterious nature of snap judgments. They need to respect the fact that it is possible to know without knowing why, and to accept that, sometimes, it is better off that way.
Snap judgments are enormously quick and rely on the thinnest slices of experience, but are also unconscious. In this regard, they are useful, but to understand how exactly they work is a frustrating endeavor. The incredibly subtle operations of the unconscious are thus unreliable in this way as well: if one cannot understand how she makes a choice in a high stakes or stressful situation it can be difficult to trust that instinct in the first place.
Having black students fill out the demographic information was sufficient to prime them with all the negative stereotypes associated with blacks and academic achievement – the number of questions they got right was cut in half. Such results suggest that what is thought of as free will is a lot more susceptible to outside influences than a person realizes. In this example, one question can undermine students' behavior during the test, which then in turn influences how they think about not only their performance, but also their intelligence. We may infer, then, that the question of ethnicity in the context of standardized tests carries an entire culture's worth of connotations. The effects of thin-slicing and priming are therefore the result of a wealth of experience - which points to Gladwell's idea that the adaptive unconscious can be cultivated. This idea will be explored in the following chapter.