In The Art of Choosing, Sheena Iyengar, a business professor at Columbia University and a leading expert on decision making, tel

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问题     In The Art of Choosing, Sheena Iyengar, a business professor at Columbia University and a leading expert on decision making, tells us that making sound choices is even more difficult than we think. To learn how to make better decisions, we first need to become aware of the pitfalls(陷阱)we typically encounter.
    Iyengar reveals, for example, that having many options to choose from does not lead to better outcomes, despite popular assumptions to the contrary. For instance, she found that consumers were far more likely to buy jam when given fewer flavor choices, not more. "We frequently pay a mental and emotional tax for freedom of choice," she writes. To become better choosers, Iyengar proposes that when confronted with an abundance of options, people should focus first on the easiest elements of the decision and work up to the more complex parts.
    She illustrates this point using one study in which Audi buyers had to choose among 144 total car features. One group started with the features that required fewer options, such as whether they wanted leather or upholstered interiors, and worked up to features with many options, such as choosing among 56 colors for the car’s interior and exterior. The other group started with the hardest choices and moved toward the easier ones. In the end, those in the group that went from the hardest to easiest spent an average of 1,500 euros more on their cars than the other group and reported they were less happy with their decisions.
    Iyengar also explains that we often make decisions not based on our tastes but on how we think our decisions will be perceived. In 2000 a team of psychologists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University showed that people receiving a free sample of beer chose against their tastes to avoid looking like copycats to their peers. Individuals who picked their beers in private, however, chose what they enjoyed and said they were happy with their decisions. Iyengar points out that the people who chose against their tastes were often unconscious of what motivated their decisions. Thus, she proposes that one way to avoid strong and sometimes silent influences is to try to become more aware of them in the first place.
    Ultimately, Iyengar wants us to recognize that our decisions—both the mundane(普通的)and momentous—are influenced by many factors and that the more we recognize those factors, the more satisfied we will be.
What does the passage mainly discuss?

选项 A、How to make better decisions.
B、The factors affecting our decisions.
C、How to recognize the factors influencing our choices.
D、The obstacles in making better choices.

答案A

解析 主旨题。在本文第一段中艾杨格建议人们要做出更好的决定,首先需要认识到那些我们通常会遇到的陷阱;在第二段中艾杨格认为拥有很多的选择并不能导致更好的结果,所以她建议人们在面临大量的选择时,应该由易到难;该建议在第三段中通过对比两组奥迪汽车购买者得到了进一步的说明和强调;在第四段中艾杨格通过在公开场合选择啤酒口味的例子说明有很多潜移默化的因素会影响人们的决定,她建议避免这些影响的方法就是:从一开始就更了解它们;在最后一段中,艾杨格建议人们了解更多影响决定的因素。综上所述,我们可以看出本文主要阐明的是艾杨格建议如何做出更好的决定,[A]“如何做出更好的决定”是正确答案。[B]“影响我们决定的因素”、[C]“如何认识这些会影响我们选择的因素”和[D]“那些影响我们做出更好选择的障碍”虽然都是本文所提及的内容,但并不是本文的主旨所在,故均可排除。
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