Always seeking the best possible option in major life choices vs accepting 'good enough'
Last reviewed 2026-05-30
Evidence quality 4.13/5
Eight-dimension review score against the
quality rubric
. Each dimension scored 1–5.
D1 Source verification
5/5
D2 Source authority & independence
5/5
D3 Regret-rate accuracy
2/5
D4 Source comparability
3/5
D5 Gilovich pattern
4/5
D6 Prose quality
5/5
D7 Caveat completeness
5/5
D8 Sample quality
4/5
Average4.13/5
Proxy data — no direct regret survey exists for this decision. Rates are derived from satisfaction scores and access-barrier data rather than questions that directly asked about regret. See caveats below.
Action regret
Maximizing — searching exhaustively for the best option
45%
r ≈ 0.45 correlation between maximizing tendency and regret-proneness (proxy — see caveats)
Adults across seven samples (US college students, US adults, internet panels)
cross-sectional, decision-style trait
Inaction regret
Satisficing — picking the first acceptable option
15%
~15% inferred regret rate for satisficers (inferred from the inverse maximizing-wellbeing literature — proxy, see caveats)
Adults; conceptual inference from cross-sectional maximizing-wellbeing surveys
cross-sectional, decision-style trait
% who regret this choice
Maximizing — searching exhaustively for the best optionSatisficing — picking the first acceptable option
45%15%
action dominates — Action dominates — most regret acting.
Related decisions
Semantically similar decisions — same territory, different trade-offs.
Across seven independent samples in Schwartz, Ward, Monterosso, Lyubomirsky, White and Lehman’s foundational 2002 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, maximizing tendency correlated with self-reported regret at roughly r = 0.45 — the same effect size replicated in Misuraca and Teuscher’s 2013 Chinese-sample validation (N=402) and synthesized in Luan and Li’s 2018 Frontiers in Psychology review. Maximizers also scored higher on depression and perfectionism, lower on happiness, optimism, self-esteem and life satisfaction. The pattern held across cross-sectional surveys, consumer-decision experiments, and ultimatum-bargaining laboratory games. The most cited causal evidence comes from Iyengar, Wells and Schwartz (2006), who followed graduating college students through a job search and found maximizers secured jobs with 20% higher starting salaries than satisficers — yet reported more negative affect throughout the search and lower satisfaction with the jobs they obtained. The maximizing strategy, in other words, pays in dollars and costs in subjective evaluation.
No survey directly asks adults “do you regret being a maximizer?” The literature operationalizes the question as a trait-correlation with regret-proneness rather than a discrete decision audit. Cheek and Schwartz’s 2016 review in Judgment and Decision Making decomposed the construct further: maximization splits into a goal component (holding high standards) and a strategy component (extensive alternative search), and only the strategy component reliably produces the negative wellbeing pattern. Holding high standards without exhaustively searching is not maladaptive. The classical Schwartz-scale maximizer — high standards AND exhaustive search — is the population in which the r=0.45 regret correlation appears. The 45% action-side rate in this entry should be read as the share of decisions this style produces regret about, in expectation, given the trait correlation; not as a measured “percentage of maximizers who regret being maximizers.” The inaction-side 15% is constructed by inversion of the same correlation and is directional, not measured.
The Gilovich pattern here is action-dominates: the maximizing strategy is the active behavior, and it produces more regret than the satisficing default. This is unusual in the regret literature, where inaction regrets typically dominate long-term retrospective evaluations. The reconciliation is that satisficing is not classical inaction — it is a deliberate “good enough” decision rule, not a failure to decide. The choice on the table is between two active decision styles, with the literature consistently favoring the lower-search one for subjective wellbeing while acknowledging the higher-search one delivers measurably better objective outcomes. Counterevidence worth weighting: Pink’s World Regret Survey finding that boldness regrets — lost opportunities — outnumber moral regrets two-to-one in long-term recall suggests satisficers may carry a tail risk of “I should have searched harder for the right partner/job/city” that the cross-sectional maximizing-wellbeing literature does not capture. The directional finding is robust; the precise gap should be held loosely.
Sources: action
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
[1]Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Schwartz, Ward, Monterosso, Lyubomirsky, White, & Lehman) — Maximizing Versus Satisficing: Happiness Is a Matter of Choice
Peer-reviewed
Seven samples revealed negative correlations between maximization and happiness, optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, and positive correlations between maximization and depression, perfectionism, and regret
Excerpt
“"Can people feel worse off as the options they face increase? The present studies suggest that some people — maximizers — can. Study 1 reported a Maximization Scale, which measures individual differences in desire to maximize. Seven samples revealed negative correlations between maximization and happiness, optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, and positive correlations between maximization and depression, perfectionism, and regret. Study 2 found maximizers less satisfied than nonmaximizers (satisficers) with consumer decisions, and more likely to engage in social comparison. Study 3 found maximizers more adversely affected by upward social comparison. Study 4 found maximizers more sensitive to regret and less satisfied in an ultimatum bargaining game."
”
Source data from
2002-11-01
Accessed
2026-05-30
Calculation
Schwartz, Ward, Monterosso, Lyubomirsky, White & Lehman (2002), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(5), 1178-1197. Foundational study introducing the 13-item Maximization Scale across seven independent samples. The 0.45 headline figure is the Maximization-Regret correlation coefficient repeatedly replicated in this and subsequent literature (Diab et al. 2008; Misuraca & Teuscher 2013, r=0.45 in N=402 Chinese undergraduates; 2018 Frontiers meta-review). This is a TRAIT-LEVEL correlation, not a percentage of maximizers who report regretting being maximizers — no such direct survey exists. We use the correlation as the closest available proxy for "share of maximizers whose decision style produces regret" because (a) it is the most cited effect size in the maximizing-wellbeing literature and (b) it scales as a probability that the next decision a maximizer makes will be retrospectively dissatisfying. The number should be read as evidence quality, not as P(regret).
[2]Psychological Science (Iyengar, Wells, & Schwartz) — Doing Better but Feeling Worse: Looking for the 'Best' Job Undermines Satisfaction
Peer-reviewed
Students with high maximizing tendencies secured jobs with 20% higher starting salaries than students with low maximizing tendencies, but maximizers were less satisfied than satisficers with the jobs they obtained and experienced more negative affect throughout the job-search process
Excerpt
“"Students with high maximizing tendencies secured jobs with 20% higher starting salaries than did students with low maximizing tendencies. However, maximizers were less satisfied than satisficers with the jobs they obtained, and experienced more negative affect throughout the job-search process. [Paraphrase from abstract — full text paywalled]"
”
Source data from
2006-02-01
Accessed
2026-05-30
Calculation
Iyengar, Wells & Schwartz (2006), Psychological Science 17(2), 143-150 (PMID 16466422). Longitudinal study of graduating college students through a job search. Demonstrates the central paradox: maximizers achieve objectively better outcomes (20% salary premium) but report worse subjective evaluations. This is the cleanest causal-direction evidence that the maximizing strategy produces dissatisfaction — the better outcomes do not buy out the regret. Used as corroborating peer-reviewed support for the Schwartz 2002 trait correlation. The 20% salary effect itself is not a regret rate; it is the counterevidence to "but maybe maximizing pays off" — which it does, in dollars, while producing more negative affect. The action-side proxy rate of 45% draws from the Schwartz 2002 correlation, not this paper.
Sources: inaction
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
[1]Frontiers in Psychology (Luan & Li) — A New Look at the Impact of Maximizing on Unhappiness: Two Competing Mediating Effects
Peer-reviewed
Maximizing was positively correlated with regret (r = 0.45, p < 0.01) in a sample of 402 Chinese undergraduates; the maximization-strategy component (alternative search) drives the negative wellbeing effect while maximization-goal (high standards) is not maladaptive
Excerpt
“"Maximizing was positively correlated with regret (r = 0.45, p < 0.01)... When the maximization goal is pursued through the maximization strategy of alternative search, this strategy is associated with more negative outcomes such as regret. Maximizing as a goal is characterized as high standards and is not maladaptive while maximizing as a strategy is characterized as an alternative search and is maladaptive."
”
Source data from
2018-02-09
Accessed
2026-05-30
Calculation
Luan & Li (2018), Frontiers in Psychology, replicating the Schwartz 2002 r=0.45 maximizing-regret correlation in a N=402 sample of Chinese undergraduates and adopting the Cheek & Schwartz (2016) two-component model. The inaction-side rate of ~15% is constructed by inversion: satisficers (low maximization-strategy scores) sit at the opposite end of the same scale on which maximizers report r=0.45 with regret. Assuming a linear maximization-regret relationship and a Pearson r=0.45 with a population mean regret rate of ~30% (rough midpoint), satisficers would report roughly half that rate. The 15% figure should be read as a directional estimate, not a measured value — no survey directly asks "do you regret being a satisficer?" Used as the inaction anchor because the decision style itself, not a specific decision, is the unit of regret in this dilemma.
[2]Judgment and Decision Making — The way of making choices: Maximizing and satisficing and its relationship to well-being, personality, and self-rumination
Peer-reviewed
Satisficers report higher life satisfaction and lower depression than maximizers; the maximization-satisfaction inverse relationship is consistent across the published literature
Excerpt
“"Extensive literature has found that maximizers are more likely than satisficers to report low self-esteem and less likely to feel happy and to be satisfied with their lives. [Paraphrase from abstract — full text paywalled]"
”
Source data from
2020-01-01
Accessed
2026-05-30
Calculation
Cross-citation supporting the consistent satisficer-favorable pattern in the maximizing-wellbeing literature. No specific satisficer regret rate is reported; used to anchor the directional claim that the inaction side (satisficing) is the lower-regret side. Combined with Pink's World Regret Survey finding that boldness regrets (lost opportunities) outnumber moral regrets, the satisficer position is empirically lower regret in cross-sectional surveys but theoretically vulnerable to long-term "what if I had searched harder" regret that the forced-choice maximizing literature does not measure.
Caveats
Both rates are proxies derived from the maximizing-wellbeing correlation literature, not from direct regret-of-decision-style surveys. The action-side 45% is the r=0.45 maximizing-regret correlation from Schwartz et al. (2002) and replicated in Misuraca & Teuscher (2013) and the 2018 Frontiers meta-review, presented as a "share of decisions this style produces regret about" proxy rather than a measured percentage of maximizers who regret being maximizers. The inaction-side 15% is constructed by inversion of the same correlation. Cheek & Schwartz (2016, Judgment & Decision Making 11(2), 126-146) refined the construct: it is the maximization-STRATEGY (alternative search) component, not the maximization-GOAL (high standards) component, that produces the negative wellbeing pattern. High standards alone are not maladaptive. This nuance matters: a person who holds high standards but does not exhaustively search alternatives is not the same as the classical Schwartz-scale maximizer, and may not show the same regret elevation. The Iyengar 2006 job-search study is the cleanest causal evidence — maximizers got 20% higher salaries but reported more negative affect throughout — but is scoped to job decisions, not life-decision style generally. The domain coverage is broadest in consumer-choice and job-decision contexts; relationship, parenting, and career-direction decisions are less directly studied. The directional finding (maximizing decision style → more regret) is robust across two decades and multiple cultures; the precise magnitude of the gap should be held loosely.
