In a few instances does the book have a take-home message that was easy enough to hang on to and those bits were the most interesting to me (especially in the discussion of situations where one is presented with so many choices, for example in health care plans or retirement investments, that one gives up or procrastinates and decides not to choose at all, thereby making the worst possible choice) Because of the sheer scope of the topic, and the sometimes contradictory conclusions that the studies showed, it was tricky as a non-psychologist to synthesize the material into a coherent outline. So much material was presented on so many aspects of choice that I felt its significance continually slipping from my grasp. Iyengar presents a rather overwhelming amount of information on her enormous and fascinating topic, mostly in the form of psychology experiments about how people choose things and make decisions both trivial and life or death.these experiments on far-flung subjects are glued together by her own analysis, antecdotes, and musings. I had to read this non-fiction book quite slowly, over the course of a month, annoying friends and colleagues by citing Iyengar's studies as they attempted to choose items off a menu, though even this slow pace wasn't long enough to really make the information stick in my brain.
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