Make the Very Best Purchase

Two guys walk into an electronics store. One has already spent hours researching prices, features, and warranties, and will visit three more locations before buying a TV. The other finds a set that will fit in his living room and within his budget, whips out his credit card, and takes it home. Which one ends up second-guessing his decision?

According to a new study in Personality and Individual Differences, it’s the first guy—the “maximizer,” who obsesses over making the best possible choice. The second guy, known as a “satisficer” because he chooses the first option that satisfies his needs, ends up happier in the long run.

Here’s the bottom line: When you fully commit to a decision, whether it’s about a TV or a woman, you unconsciously start rearranging your thoughts and preferences to reinforce your choice. Other alternatives begin to look less attractive. You end up satisfied and confident you made the right call.

Satisficers get this ball rolling as soon as they make up their minds. Maximizers, on the other hand, waffle. “It is difficult, if not impossible, for maximizers to know that the choice they made was the right one; as such, it is difficult for them to fully commit to that choice,” says study author Joyce Ehrlinger, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Florida State University. And the reservation to commit robs them of the psychological processes that leave people satisfied, Ehrlinger says.

.Watch for signs that you’re obsessing about making the right choice, and remind yourself that going with your gut can leave you more satisfied. Try to frame decisions as the search for something great instead of a quest for perfection. And, if you can, limit the number of options you have to begin with—some experts think having too many alternatives brings out our maximizing tendencies, Ehrlinger says.

Source menshealth.com