Title: terminology - What is the term for when too many choices results in inability to decide? - Psychology & Neuroscience Stack Exchange
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What is the term for when too many choices results in inability to decide?
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Content: I've heard it called Decision Paralysis or " Analysis Paralysis " but these terms don't seem to have a root in cognitive science. Is there a formal or generally accepted term for this phenomenon? terminology decision-making consumer-psychology
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edited Feb 23 '12 at 0:48
Jeromy Anglim ♦
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asked Feb 22 '12 at 15:31
Ben Brocka
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edited May 13 '16 at 0:18
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answered Feb 22 '12 at 21:07
William B Swift
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Overchoice or "choice overload" are the common used terms for
describing the cognitive process in which people have a difficult time making a decision when faced with many options (Wikipedia on Overchoice)
The same souce refers that the concept was first introduced by Alvin Toffler in his book named Future Shock. Barry Schwartz as well as Barbara Fasolo and collegues call it "the tiranny of choice". Nevertheless, recently, some authors have been cast doubts
on the phenomenon being as pervasive or important as some might have given it credit for. Instead, it appears probable that such choice effects might be limited to particular contexts, assuming they reliably exist in the first place (see Is Choice Overload a Real Thing?) Share
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answered Dec 26 '16 at 1:07
decision maker
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In HCI terms, which is where I come from, this would probably be called information overload. It is the situation where a person is presented with so much information that they cannot process all of it successfully. In Cognitive terms, the term probably works best because it is caused, I believe, by insufficient short term memory being available to successfully process what is needed from a page, so the decisions about what to do cannot be made. In a similar way, if too much information is given to a person - even if expressed in terms of "you could do this, or you could do this... " then they cannot dismiss the options enough to narrow it down.