Choice freedom
Contrary to popular belief, choice freedom does not always improve wellbeing and whole classes of consumers are unable to take full advantage of marketplace opportunities.
The challenge:
There is a large literature on choice freedom in the consumption context, but it tends to assume that choice freedom is a good thing and available to everyone. In reality, however, choice freedom does not always improve wellbeing and whole classes of consumers are unable to take full advantage of marketplace opportunities.
Contrary to popular belief, choice freedom does not always improve wellbeing and whole classes of consumers are unable to take full advantage of marketplace opportunities.
The challenge:
There is a large literature on choice freedom in the consumption context, but it tends to assume that choice freedom is a good thing and available to everyone. In reality, however, choice freedom does not always improve wellbeing and whole classes of consumers are unable to take full advantage of marketplace opportunities.
The research:
The Journal of Consumer Psychology asked the researchers to review the existing body of work on choice freedom and to examine its relationship with personal and societal wellbeing. The review uses decades of academic research and current societal debates in the popular press to analyse choice freedom through the lens of autonomy and personal control, and to explore the positive and negative effects of choice freedom on wellbeing.
The impact:
The research addresses important outstanding questions about choice freedom and the wellbeing of individuals and society. For example, how can we reconcile peoples’ desire for choice freedom with their increasing tendency to delegate choices to AI-powered devices? Is the freedom to make a choice perceived as less valuable than the freedom to avoid making a choice? What are the consequences of individual choice freedom on the freedom of others? And does the focus on choice freedom ignore the narrowed options faced by whole classes of consumers, including people of lower socioeconomic status, as well as minorities and vulnerable consumers who are unable to take full advantage of marketplace opportunities?
The article argues that an examination of choice freedom that goes beyond the selection and evaluation of options from a choice set to acknowledge the existence of different types and levels of freedom could open the door to a powerful idea: freedom is not only about discerning an option but about understanding, and even creating, a new one altogether.
