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A shopper walks down an aisle in a newly opened Walmart Neighborhood Market in Chicago in this Sept. 21, 2011 file photo.Reuters/Jim Young
In Barry Schwartz's seminal book, "The Paradox of Choice," we learn that while choice is a vital part of autonomy and fundamental to our well-being, too much choice has a cost, and our obsession with it contributes to bad decisions, anxiety, stress, dissatisfaction, paralysis, and even depression.
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From choosing the best tacos to finding the ideal mate, today's perils of choice come from every direction. Almost every part of daily life requires us to choose, compelling many to waste a ton of time and energy on research for fear that the wrong decision might get made.
Here are some of the ways too many options mess with us, according to psychological research:
