Is choice freedom always a good thing for us and others?

Researchers from London Business School, Columbia Business School, and The University of Chicago Booth School of Business published a paper in the Journal of Consumer Psychology that offers new insights into the relationship between consumer choice freedom and personal and societal welfare.

The article, “Choice freedom,” authored by Simona Botti, Sheena S. Iyengar, and Ann L. McGill, uses decades of academic research and current societal debates in the press to explore the ways in which choice freedom can positively and negatively affect well-being.  They also focus on the extent to which individuals and groups actually have freedom of choice and how various factors impact their ability to exercise it.

Autonomy and Personal Control

The article analyzes choice freedom through the lens of both autonomy – the ability to make decisions for oneself, and personal control - the perceived ability to bring about good events or avoid bad ones. For example, people who have a solid sense of autonomy may avoid psychological distress. However, the feeling of autonomy associated with choice freedom could undermine well-being if it conflicts with preexisting sociocultural norms.

“In India, for instance, an individual’s actions tend to be interrelated to their social surroundings,” the authors write, “whereas in the United States, the actions of an individual tend to be more independent and unaffected by the actions of others in their social surroundings.”

Therefore, the team argues that choice freedom results in a stronger feeling of autonomy and greater subjective well-being in the United States than in India – a finding relevant to policymakers, marketers, and academics who seek to understand and influence others.

The freedom to make choices can lead individuals to feel a higher degree of personal control, increasing the importance individuals give to their choices. The results may include an enhanced sense of responsibility, emotional and cognitive effort, and dissatisfaction. “This is the case in healthcare, where choice freedom involving difficult, and even tragic, choices often result in suboptimal decisions and lower patient satisfaction.”

Emphasizing individual choice freedom can deter prosocial decision-making, as well. For example, the focus on personal preference may blind donors to the needs of recipients. The COVID pandemic put this concern at the center of public debate, as people clung to choice freedom when deciding whether to wear masks or vaccinate. The authors ask, “Is a choice truly individual when it changes the calculation others must make about shopping, attending class, or going to work?”

The researchers posit that entire classes of consumers – groups with low-socioeconomic status, addictions, disabilities, and other vulnerabilities - are unable to take full advantage of marketplace opportunities because they lack of access to resources. Amid a wholesale focus on choice freedom, this underlying dynamic is often missed. For instance, the debate about laws against abortion or contraception and how freedom of choice effects consumers’ well-being “might be obscuring how little choice people really have.”

The authors conclude that, “acknowledging the existence of different levels of freedom could open to the door to a powerful idea: freedom is not only about discerning an option but about construing, and even creating, a new one altogether.”

Full article and author contact information available at https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jcpy.1325

About the Journal of Consumer Psychology

The Journal of Consumer Psychology publishes top-quality research articles that contribute both theoretically and empirically to our understanding of the psychology of consumer behavior. The Journal is intended for researchers in consumer psychology, social and cognitive psychology, judgment and decision making, and related disciplines. It is also relevant to professionals in advertising and public relations, marketing and branding, consumer and market research, and public policy. Published by the Society for Consumer Psychology since its founding in 1992, JCP has played a significant role in shaping the content and boundaries of the consumer psychology discipline. Dr. Lauren Block (Lippert Professor of Marketing at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College) serves as the current Editor-in-Chief.

About the Society for Consumer Psychology (SCP)

The Society for Consumer Psychology is the premier voice to further the advancement of the discipline of consumer psychology in a global society. Building upon the Society's excellence in mentoring young behavioral scientists, the SCP facilitates the generation and dissemination of intellectual contributions and promotes professional development and research opportunities for its members around the globe. Dr. Gita V. Johar (Meyer Feldberg Professor of Business at the Columbia Business School, Columbia University) serves as the current President.