Hick’s Law states that the more choices we face, the harder it is for us to make a selection. Perhaps best explained in the terrific book The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz, Hick’s Law is why you stand slack-jawed when trying to make a cereal selection at Kroger: too. many. kinds. of. cereal.
Increasingly, we try to shortcut our decision-making by relying upon aggregate opinions of other people who have already experienced the thing we seek. Psychologically, this is what powers ratings and reviews sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, ApartmentRatings.com, RealSelf.com (plastic surgery reviews), and the hundreds of other sites that collect opinions and present them with one- to five-star scores.
The companion trend giving rise to these sites is our relative distrust of messaging from companies and organizations and our comparative embrace of the feelings of our fellow humans. Oft-cited research from BrightLocal says that more than 80 percent of people believe at least some online reviews as much as they trust recommendations from friends and family members. Companies, on the other hand, are trusted about half the time.
I suspect our reliance on ratings and… Read More