Can people feel worse off as the options they face increase? The present studies suggest that some people-maximizers-can. Study 1 reported a Maximization Scale, which measures individual differences in desire to maximize. Seven samples revealed negative correlations between maximization and happiness, optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, and positive correlations between maximization and depression, perfectionism, and regret. Study 2 found maximizers less satisfied than nonmaximizers (satisficers) with consumer decisions, and more likely to engage in social comparison. Study 3 found maximizers more adversely affected by upward social comparison. Study 4 found maximizers more sensitive to regret and less satisfied in an ultimatum bargaining game. The interaction between maximizing and choice is discussed in terms of regret, adaptation, and self-blame.

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Security is more important than wealth.--Jacob von Uexkull (1938Uexkull ( /1954 L et me tell you about an experience I had almost 20 years ago. It happened at a softball game, and to understand it, you need to know a little bit about softball. Imagine a situation in which there is a runner at first base and one out. A ground ball is hit to the pitcher. The pitcher fields the ground ball and wheels around to second base. The idea is to try for a double play by throwing to second ahead of the runner arriving from first, and then having the throw relayed from second to first, in time to beat the batter. Typically, when a ball is hit up the middle of the diamond, the second baseman and the shortstop converge at second base. When the pitcher fields the ball and turns to throw, the proper play is to throw the ball to the shortstop. The shortstop is moving toward first base, while the second baseman is moving away from it. So the shortstop's momentum will carry him in the direction that the ball must be thrown, whereas the second baseman will have to stop, pivot, and then throw. The throw from second to first is much easier for the shortstop than for the second baseman.Now here is what happened. I had just begun a sabbatical, and I was playing in a relaxed coed softball game. Although winning at all costs was not the idea in this game, there was one thing about it that was notably more serious than anything else. The women in the game did not want to be patronized; they wanted to be treated by the men as full-fledged competitors. So I was pitching, and there was one out and a runner on first. A ground ball was hit to me. I fielded it cleanly and spun around to begin the try for a double play. Both the shortstop, a man, and the second baseman, a woman, were converging on second base to receive: my throw. I wound up to throw and then stopped in my tracks. Who should I throw to? I knew, as I just indicated, that the "right" play was to throw to the shortstop, but I hesitated. Would the woman understand that I was throwing to the shortstop (who happened to be a man) because it was the right play? Or would she think that I was excluding her and throwing to the man (who happened to be the shortstop) because I thought he was more likely to catch it and throw accurately on to first than she was? Would she think that I regarded her as an obstacle to be avoided rather than as a teammate? Would she think I was an enemy of one of the major social movements of our time?These questions flooded over me in what couldn't have been more than half a second, and I still haven't answered them. Why had I been so indecisive? What was the right play? Yes, I knew that the right play was to throw to the ,.~hortstop, but I came to realize that the rightness of that choice depended on what I thought the game was that we were playing. If we were merely playing softball, then the shortstop should have gotten the throw, but we were playing more than softball. We were also participating in a social movement, one that was struggling to eliminate certa...

Expanding upon Simon's (1955) seminal theory, this investigation compared the choice-making strategies of maximizers and satisficers, finding that maximizing tendencies, although positively correlated with objectively better decision outcomes, are also associated with more negative subjective evaluations of these decision outcomes. Specifically, in the fall of their final year in school, students were administered a scale that measured maximizing tendencies and were then followed over the course of the year as they searched for jobs. Students with high maximizing tendencies secured jobs with 20% higher starting salaries than did students with low maximizing tendencies. However, maximizers were less satisfied than satisficers with the jobs they obtained, and experienced more negative affect throughout the job-search process. These effects were mediated by maximizers' greater reliance on external sources of information and their fixation on realized and unrealized options during the search and selection process.

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