Читать книгу The Irrational Bundle - Дэн Ариели, Dan Ariely, Dan Ariely - Страница 16

Chapter 9

Keeping Doors Open

Why Options Distract Us from Our Main Objective

In 210 BC, a Chinese commander named Xiang Yu led his troops across the Yangtze River to attack the army of the Qin (Ch’in) dynasty. Pausing on the banks of the river for the night, his troops awakened in the morning to find, to their horror, that their ships were burning. They hurried to their feet to fight off their attackers, but soon discovered that it was Xiang Yu himself who had set their ships on fire, and that he had also ordered all the cooking pots crushed.

Xiang Yu explained to his troops that without the pots and the ships, they had no other choice but to fight their way to victory or perish. That did not earn Xiang Yu a place on the Chinese army’s list of favorite commanders, but it did have a tremendous focusing effect on his troops: grabbing their lances and bows, they charged ferociously against the enemy and won nine consecutive battles, completely obliterating the main-force units of the Qin dynasty.

Xiang Yu’s story is remarkable because it is completely antithetical to normal human behavior. Normally, we cannot stand the idea of closing the doors on our alternatives. Had most of us been in Xiang Yu’s armor, in other words, we would have sent out part of our army to tend to the ships, just in case we needed them for retreat; and we would have asked others to cook meals, just in case the army needed to stay put for a few weeks. Still others would have been instructed to pound rice out into paper scrolls, just in case we needed parchment on which to sign the terms of the surrender of the mighty Qin (which was highly unlikely in the first place).

In the context of today’s world, we work just as feverishly to keep all our options open. We buy the expandable computer system, just in case we need all those high-tech bells and whistles. We buy the insurance policies that are offered with the plasma high-definition television, just in case the big screen goes blank. We keep our children in every activity we can imagine—just in case one sparks their interest in gymnastics, piano, French, organic gardening, or tae kwon do. And we buy a luxury SUV, not because we really expect to drive off the highway, but because just in case we do, we want to have some clearance beneath our axles.

We might not always be aware of it, but in every case we give something up for those options. We end up with a computer that has more functions than we need, or a stereo with an unnecessarily expensive warranty. And in the case of our kids, we give up their time and ours—and the chance that they could become really good at one activity—in trying to give them some experience in a large range of activities. In running back and forth among the things that might be important, we forget to spend enough time on what really is important. It’s a fool’s game, and one that we are remarkably adept at playing.

I saw this precise problem in one of my undergraduate students, an extremely talented young man named Joe. As an incoming junior, Joe had just completed his required courses, and now he had to choose a major. But which one? He had a passion for architecture—he spent his weekends studying the eclectically designed buildings around Boston. He could see himself as a designer of such proud structures one day. At the same time he liked computer science, particularly the freedom and flexibility that the field offered. He could see himself with a good-paying job at an exciting company like Google. His parents wanted him to become a computer scientist—and besides, who goes to MIT to be an architect anyway?* Still, his love of architecture was strong.

As Joe spoke, he wrung his hands in frustration. The classes he needed for majors in computer science and architecture were incompatible. For computer science, he needed Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Systems Engineering, Circuits and Electronics, Signals and Systems, Computational Structures, and a laboratory in Software Engineering. For architecture, he needed different courses: Experiencing Architecture Studio, Foundations in the Visual Arts, Introduction to Building Technology, Introduction to Design Computing, Introduction to the History and Theory of Architecture, and a further set of architecture studios.

How could he shut the door on one career or the other? If he started taking classes in computer science, he would have a hard time switching over to architecture; and if he started in architecture, he would have an equally difficult time switching to computer science. On the other hand, if he signed up for classes in both disciplines, he would most likely end up without a degree in either field at the end of his four years at MIT, and he would require another year (paid for by his parents) to complete his degree. (He eventually graduated with a degree in computer science, but he found the perfect blend in his first job—designing nuclear subs for the Navy.)

Dana, another student of mine, had a similar problem—but hers centered on two boyfriends. She could dedicate her energy and passion to a person she had met recently and, she hoped, build an enduring relationship with him. Or she could continue to put time and effort into a previous relationship that was dying. She clearly liked the new boyfriend better than the former one—yet she couldn’t let the earlier relationship go. Meanwhile, her new boyfriend was getting restless. “Do you really want to risk losing the boy you love,” I asked her, “for the remote possibility that you may discover—at some later date—that you love your former boyfriend more?” She shook her head “no,” and broke into tears.*

What is it about options that is so difficult for us? Why do we feel compelled to keep as many doors open as possible, even at great expense? Why can’t we simply commit ourselves?*

To try to answer these questions, Jiwoong Shin (a professor at Yale) and I devised a series of experiments that we hoped would capture the dilemma represented by Joe and Dana. In our case, the experiment would be based on a computer game that we hoped would eliminate some of the complexities of life and would give us a straightforward answer about whether people have a tendency to keep doors open for too long. We called it the “door game.” For a location, we chose a dark, dismal place—a cavern that even Xiang Yu’s army would have been reluctant to enter.

MIT’S EAST CAMPUS dormitory is a daunting place. It is home to the hackers, hardware enthusiasts, oddballs, and general misfits (and believe me—it takes a serious misfit to be a misfit at MIT). One hall allows loud music, wild parties, and even public nudity. Another is a magnet for engineering students, whose models of everything from bridges to roller coasters can be found everywhere. (If you ever visit this hall, press the “emergency pizza” button, and a short time later a pizza will be delivered to you.) A third hall is painted completely black. A fourth has bathrooms adorned with murals of various kinds: press the palm tree or the samba dancer, and music, piped in from the hall’s music server (all downloaded legally, of course), comes on.

One afternoon a few years ago, Kim, one of my research assistants, roamed the hallways of East Campus with a laptop tucked under her arm. At each door she asked the students whether they’d like to make some money participating in a quick experiment. When the reply was in the affirmative, Kim entered the room and found (sometimes only with difficulty) an empty spot to place the laptop.

As the program booted up, three doors appeared on the computer screen: one red, the second blue, and the third green. Kim explained that the participants could enter any of the three rooms (red, blue, or green) simply by clicking on the corresponding door. Once they were in a room, each subsequent click would earn them a certain amount of money. If a particular room offered between one cent and 10 cents, for instance, they would make something in that range each time they clicked their mouse in that room. The screen tallied their earnings as they went along.

Getting the most money out of this experiment involved finding the room with the biggest payoff and clicking in it as many times as possible. But this wasn’t trivial. Each time you moved from one room to another, you used up one click (you had a total of 100 clicks). On one hand, switching from one room to another might be a good strategy for finding the biggest payout. On the other hand, running madly from door to door (and room to room) meant that you were burning up clicks which could otherwise have made you money.

Albert, a violin player (and a resident of the Dark Lord Krotus worshippers’ hall), was one of the first participants. He was a competitive type, and determined to make more money than anyone else playing the game. For his first move, he chose the red door and entered the cube-shaped room.

Once inside, he clicked the mouse. It registered 3.5 cents. He clicked again; 4.1 cents; a third click registered one cent. After he sampled a few more of the rewards in this room, his interest shifted to the green door. He clicked the mouse eagerly and went in.

Here he was rewarded with 3.7 cents for his first click; he clicked again and received 5.8 cents; he received 6.5 cents the third time. At the bottom of the screen his earnings began to grow. The green room seemed better than the red room—but what about the blue room? He clicked to go through that last unexplored door. Three clicks fell in the range of four cents. Forget it. He hurried back to the green door (the room paying about five cents a click) and spent the remainder of his 100 clicks there, increasing his payoff. At the end, Albert inquired about his score. Kim smiled as she told him it was one of the best so far.

ALBERT HAD CONFIRMED something that we suspected about human behavior: given a simple setup and a clear goal (in this case, to make money), all of us are quite adept at pursuing the source of our satisfaction. If you were to express this experiment in terms of dating, Albert had essentially sampled one date, tried another, and even had a fling with a third. But after he had tried the rest, he went back to the best—and that’s where he stayed for the remainder of the game.

But to be frank, Albert had it pretty easy. Even while he was running around with other “dates,” the previous ones waited patiently for him to return to their arms. But suppose that the other dates, after a period of neglect, began to turn their backs on him? Suppose that his options began to close down? Would Albert let them go? Or would he try to hang on to all his options for as long as possible? In fact, would he sacrifice some of his guaranteed payoffs for the privilege of keeping these other options alive?

To find out, we changed the game. This time, any door left unvisited for 12 clicks would disappear forever.

SAM, A RESIDENT of the hackers’ hall, was our first participant in the “disappearing” condition. He chose the blue door to begin with; and after entering it, he clicked three times. His earnings began building at the bottom of the screen, but this wasn’t the only activity that caught his eye. With each additional click, the other doors diminished by one-twelfth, signifying that if not attended to, they would vanish. Eight more clicks and they would disappear forever.

Sam wasn’t about to let that happen. Swinging his cursor around, he clicked on the red door, brought it up to its full size, and clicked three times inside the red room. But now he noticed the green door—it was four clicks from disappearing. Once again, he moved his cursor, this time restoring the green door to its full size.

The green door appeared to be delivering the highest payout. So should he stay there? (Remember that each room had a range of payouts. So Sam could not be completely convinced that the green door was actually the best. The blue might have been better, or perhaps the red, or maybe neither.) With a frenzied look in his eye, Sam swung his cursor across the screen. He clicked the red door and watched the blue door continue to shrink. After a few clicks in the red, he jumped over to the blue. But by now the green was beginning to get dangerously small—and so he was back there next.

Before long, Sam was racing from one option to another, his body leaning tensely into the game. In my mind I pictured a typically harried parent, rushing kids from one activity to the next.

Is this an efficient way to live our lives—especially when another door or two is added every week? I can’t tell you the answer for certain in terms of your personal life, but in our experiments we saw clearly that running from pillar to post was not only stressful but uneconomical. In fact, in their frenzy to keep doors from shutting, our participants ended up making substantially less money (about 15 percent less) than the participants who didn’t have to deal with closing doors. The truth is that they could have made more money by picking a room—any room—and merely staying there for the whole experiment! (Think about that in terms of your life or career.)

When Jiwoong and I tilted the experiments against keeping options open, the results were still the same. For instance, we made each click opening a door cost three cents, so that the cost was not just the loss of a click (an opportunity cost) but also a direct financial loss. There was no difference in response from our participants. They still had the same irrational excitement about keeping their options open.

Then we told the participants the exact monetary outcomes they could expect from each room. The results were still the same. They still could not stand to see a door close. Also, we allowed some participants to experience hundreds of practice trials before the actual experiment. Certainly, we thought, they would see the wisdom of not pursuing the closing doors. But we were wrong. Once they saw their options shrinking, our MIT students—supposedly among the best and brightest of young people—could not stay focused. Pecking like barnyard hens at every door, they sought to make more money, and ended up making far less.

In the end, we tried another sort of experiment, one that smacked of reincarnation. In this condition, a door would still disappear if it was not visited within 12 clicks. But it wasn’t gone forever. Rather, a single click could bring it back to life. In other words, you could neglect a door without any loss. Would this keep our participants from clicking on it anyhow? No. To our surprise, they continued to waste their clicks on the “reincarnating” door, even though its disappearance had no real consequences and could always be easily reversed. They just couldn’t tolerate the idea of the loss, and so they did whatever was necessary to prevent their doors from closing.

HOW CAN WE unshackle ourselves from this irrational impulse to chase worthless options? In 1941 the philosopher Erich Fromm wrote a book called Escape from Freedom. In a modern democracy, he said, people are beset not by a lack of opportunity, but by a dizzying abundance of it. In our modern society this is emphatically so. We are continually reminded that we can do anything and be anything we want to be. The problem is in living up to this dream. We must develop ourselves in every way possible; must taste every aspect of life; must make sure that of the 1,000 things to see before dying, we have not stopped at number 999. But then comes a problem—are we spreading ourselves too thin? The temptation Fromm was describing, I believe, is what we saw as we watched our participants racing from one door to another.

Running from door to door is a strange enough human activity. But even stranger is our compulsion to chase after doors of little worth—opportunities that are nearly dead, or that hold little interest for us. My student Dana, for instance, had already concluded that one of her suitors was most likely a lost cause. Then why did she jeopardize her relationship with the other man by continuing to nourish the wilting relationship with the less appealing romantic partner? Similarly, how many times have we bought something on sale not because we really needed it but because by the end of the sale all of those items would be gone, and we could never have it at that price again?

THE OTHER SIDE of this tragedy develops when we fail to realize that some things really are disappearing doors, and need our immediate attention. We may work more hours at our jobs, for instance, without realizing that the childhood of our sons and daughters is slipping away. Sometimes these doors close too slowly for us to see them vanishing. One of my friends told me, for instance, that the single best year of his marriage was when he was living in New York, his wife was living in Boston, and they met only on weekends. Before they had this arrangement—when they lived together in Boston—they would spend their weekends catching up on work rather than enjoying each other. But once the arrangement changed, and they knew that they had only the weekends together, their shared time became limited and had a clear end (the time of the return train). Since it was clear that the clock was ticking, they dedicated the weekends to enjoying each other rather than doing their work.

I’m not advocating giving up work and staying home for the sake of spending all your time with your children, or moving to a different city just to improve your weekends with your spouse (although it might provide some benefits). But wouldn’t it be nice to have a built-in alarm, to warn us when the doors are closing on our most important options?

SO WHAT CAN we do? In our experiments, we proved that running helter-skelter to keep doors from closing is a fool’s game. It will not only wear out our emotions but also wear out our wallets. What we need is to consciously start closing some of our doors. Small doors, of course, are rather easy to close. We can easily strike names off our holiday card lists or omit the tae kwon do from our daughter’s string of activities.

But the bigger doors (or those that seem bigger) are harder to close. Doors that just might lead to a new career or to a better job might be hard to close. Doors that are tied to our dreams are also hard to close. So are relationships with certain people—even if they seem to be going nowhere.

We have an irrational compulsion to keep doors open. It’s just the way we’re wired. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to close them. Think about a fictional episode: Rhett Butler leaving Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, in the scene when Scarlett clings to him and begs him, “Where shall I go? What shall I do?” Rhett, after enduring too much from Scarlett, and finally having his fill of it, says, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” It’s not by chance that this line has been voted the most memorable in cinematographic history. It’s the emphatic closing of a door that gives it widespread appeal. And it should be a reminder to all of us that we have doors—little and big ones—which we ought to shut.

We need to drop out of committees that are a waste of our time and stop sending holiday cards to people who have moved on to other lives and friends. We need to determine whether we really have time to watch basketball and play both golf and squash and keep our family together; perhaps we should put some of these sports behind us. We ought to shut them because they draw energy and commitment away from the doors that should be left open—and because they drive us crazy.

SUPPOSE YOU’VE CLOSED so many of your doors that you have just two left. I wish I could say that your choices are easier now, but often they are not. In fact, choosing between two things that are similarly attractive is one of the most difficult decisions we can make. This is a situation not just of keeping options open for too long, but of being indecisive to the point of paying for our indecision in the end. Let me use the following story to explain.

A hungry donkey approaches a barn one day looking for hay and discovers two haystacks of identical size at the two opposite sides of the barn. The donkey stands in the middle of the barn between the two haystacks, not knowing which to select. Hours go by, but he still can’t make up his mind. Unable to decide, the donkey eventually dies of starvation.*

This story is hypothetical, of course, and casts unfair aspersions on the intelligence of donkeys. A better example might be the U.S. Congress. Congress frequently gridlocks itself, not necessarily with regard to the big picture of particular legislation—the restoration of the nation’s aging highways, immigration, improving federal protection of endangered species, etc.—but with regard to the details. Often, to a reasonable person, the party lines on these issues are the equivalent of the two bales of hay. Despite this, or because of it, Congress is frequently left stuck in the middle. Wouldn’t a quick decision have been better for everybody?

Here’s another example. One of my friends spent three months selecting a digital camera from two nearly identical models. When he finally made his selection, I asked him how many photo opportunities had he missed, how much of his valuable time he had spent making the selection, and how much he would have paid to have digital pictures of his family and friends documenting the last three months. More than the price of the camera, he said. Has something like this ever happened to you?

What my friend (and also the donkey and Congress) failed to do when focusing on the similarities and minor differences between two things was to take into account the consequences of not deciding. The donkey failed to consider starving, Congress failed to consider the lives lost while it debated highway legislation, and my friend failed to consider all the great pictures he was missing, not to mention the time he was spending at Best Buy. More important, they all failed to take into consideration the relatively minor differences that would have come with either one of the decisions.

My friend would have been equally happy with either camera; the donkey could have eaten either bale of hay; and the members of Congress could have gone home crowing over their accomplishments, regardless of the slight difference in bills. In other words, they all should have considered the decision an easy one. They could have even flipped a coin (figuratively, in the case of the donkey) and gotten on with their lives. But we don’t act that way, because we just can’t close those doors.

ALTHOUGH CHOOSING BETWEEN two very similar options should be simple, in fact it is not. I fell victim to this very same problem a few years ago, when I was considering whether to stay at MIT or move to Stanford (I chose MIT in the end). Confronted with these two options, I spent several weeks comparing the two schools closely and found that they were about the same in their overall attractiveness to me. So what did I do? At this stage of my problem, I decided I needed some more information and research on the ground. So I carefully examined both schools. I met people at each place and asked them how they liked it. I checked out neighborhoods and possible schools for our kids. Sumi and I pondered how the two options would fit in with the kind of life we wanted for ourselves. Before long, I was getting so engrossed in this decision that my academic research and productivity began to suffer. Ironically, as I searched for the best place to do my work, my research was being neglected.

Since you have probably invested some money to purchase my wisdom in this book (not to mention time, and the other activities you have given up in the process), I should probably not readily admit that I wound up like the donkey, trying to discriminate between two very similar bales of hay. But I did.

In the end, and with all my foreknowledge of the difficulty in this decision-making process, I was just as predictably irrational as everyone else.