Sheena Iyengar
Sheena Iyengar
Sheena S. Iyengaris the inaugural S.T. Lee Professor of Business in the Management Division at Columbia Business School. She is one of the world's experts on choice. Her research focuses on: why people want choice, what affects how and what we choose, and how we can improve our decision-making outcomes...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEducator
Date of Birth29 November 1969
CountryUnited States of America
commitment order practice
In order to 'hold fast' to something, one must allow oneself to be held to something. That commitment may be one of the hardest things to practice in a world of so much choice.
feelings tomorrow minutes
So gut tells you "How do I feel about this right now?" It doesn't tell me how I feel about it tomorrow or even a few minutes from now. It just tells me how I'm feeling right now.
creative environment process
Choosing is a creative process, one through which we construct our environment, our lives, ourselves.
numbers people decision
When people are given a moderate number of options (4 to 6) rather than a large number (20 to 30), they are more likely to make a choice, are more confident in their decisions, and are happier with what they choose.
trying needs narrative
The phantasmagoria, the actual experience that we try to understand and organize through narrative, varies from place to place. No single narrative serves the needs of everyone everywhere.
russia people giving
When I was in Russia I found that I thought I was going to give these people that I was interviewing a whole bunch of choice in terms of what they could drink while we were chatting.
lonely disappointment people
The saying goes that history repeats itself; personal histories do the same. We can gather the lessons of others' lives through observation, conversation, and by seeking advice. We can use the automatic system to find out who the happy people are, and the reflective system to evaluate how they got to be that way. Pursuing happiness need not be a lonely endeavor. In fact, throwing in our lot with others may be a very good way of coping with the disappointments of choice.
taken home practice
One could even argue that we have a duty to create and pass on stories about choice because once a person knows such stories, they can't be taken away from him. He may lose his possessions, his home, his loved ones, but if he holds on to a story about choice, he retains the ability to practice choice.
mom dad school
Being a Sikh meant having to do what Mom and Dad said, and going to temple, and Mom and Dad choosing who I would marry. But going to an American school taught me that I was the one who's supposed to make those choices.
today walmart typical
The typical Walmart today offers you 100,000 products.
mom dad children
In America we tell our parents to bring their child home and put him or her in a crib; as they get older, children sleep in they own room not in Mom and Dad's room. What are we training them for? It's independence, because that's what being empowered is all about.
track people looks
we began to look at "Why is that?" And a large part of that has to do with the fact that when people have a lot of options to choose from they don't know how to tell them apart. They don't know how to keep track of them.
desire taste born
We're born with the desire, but we don't really know how to choose. We don't know what our taste is, and we don't know what we are seeing.
kindness important said
You know if they said kindness or funniness was really most important to them then they will be more likely to say yes to the person that they thought was kind and funny.