Last week, I was at an anniversary celebration of a start-up organisation I have worked with. The dinner buffet was quite a spread. The choice from a variety of Western, Japanese, Indian, Thai, Indonesian and Singaporean fare was overwhelming. Most of us sampled different dishes, but somehow felt dissatisfied for not having tried them all. A few of us were happy sticking to just a few dishes. It reminded me of the idea of maximisers and satisficers, popularised by Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore College.

Maximiser

If you are a maximiser, you like to maximise your experience from every decision. You tend to regard every decision as a problem to be solved – with the underlying belief that there’s only one solution that would give you the best outcome. You are always keen to explore all possibilities, research them well, and then decide. You don’t like to take the chance of making a sub-optimal decision. You would hate to have tried the dishes that didn’t maximise your lunch experience.

Unfortunately, this approach does not make us content and happy. Since arriving at the ideal outcome is key to our approach, we routinely like to compare with others’ outcomes. When we find that some others have gotten to a better outcome, we feel dissatisfied. For example, when our peers do better at work or friends’ children seem to achieve more or others whose plate looks more stimulating.

Imagine driving home through a busy road. As a maximiser, you would be constantly estimating which lane would move quicker and be willing to keep changing lanes to get home faster. Notwithstanding the road etiquette concerns, how do you feel when the vehicles in the other lane actually move faster?

Satisficer

The other dominant type is the satisficer.  If you are a satisficer, you prefer peace and contentment over desperately arriving at the ideal solution. You are willing to work with fewer choices and research them only so much that you arrive at a satisfactory outcome. An outcome that’s ‘pretty good’ for you. You are happy to partake of a few dishes and be very willing to stick to the lane that generally gets you home faster.

You see the trade-off between time, effort and contentment.  Thus, you may exercise self-imposed limits on many of your decisions – for example, spend only so much time shopping for furniture or check only so many websites before booking a holiday hotel.

Impact and possibilities

Maximisers constantly seek to over reach. Consequently, they tend to do better in their careers and may even earn more. However, they also tend to be less satisfied. They feel they underachieved compared to someone else or their own expectations. Arguably, satisficers sound like underachievers. While it’s possible they maybe so on any single dimension, they do better on a holistic assessment of life experience.

Your dominant trait has a ripple effect on your personality and your life experience. It shapes not only your level of contentment, peace and happiness, but also your sense of self-worth. Maximisers tend to score lower on these yardsticks. It also affects your ability to relate to others. For example, maximisers might be more prone to judging others based on their outcomes.

Perhaps the answer lies in striking an optimal balance. I grew up as a maximiser and have been that way for much of my adult life. However, in recent years, I have become more self-aware and have been learning to be more of a satisficer. In many key life decisions, including about my professional pursuits, I have been happy to prioritise inner peace over maximising outcomes. Although, because I have more time now, I do sometime catch myself exploring more options than necessary while booking a hotel for our holiday.