Bears

(If you don't know about the bears, read the previous post.)

They've given the bears walks, tea parties, and sponge baths. They've pulled out the pile of beautiful doll & premie baby clothes & they've dressed & undressed them. A is knitting her bear (Cleopatra) a scarf. H's bear (Chocolate) is mostly a nudist. But I'm sensing a bit of a peevishness in the kids.

H is still for the most part happy with the bear. But he's also the kid who can walk into a store, pull the first thing of a shelf and exclaim "this is perfect! Let's go home & play with it!" A is the one who agonizes over choosing everything. When she takes her allowance to spend at a shop, you need to be prepared for a long stay while she ponders and chooses. You don't want to take her to an ice cream shop with 31 flavours. She can handle choices such as 'vanilla or chocolate'?

In that Paradox of Choice book, Schwartz quotes a study which I don't have the reference for. I also can't remember the exact numbers. So I'm making up the details here but the gist is real. (most of my stories are like that; I suck at the details)

They had a jam display in a store. There were samples, and customers could purchase jars of the jam. In one group they had 5 (?) different types of jam; in the other they had 20 (?).

In each case, they measured how many people purchased jam after trying the free sample. They also asked people how happy they were with their purchase.

The results: when faced with only 5 choices, people were much more likely to actually buy a jar, AND they were much happier about their purchase.

The people with 20 choices didn't buy as much jam, and those who did weren't as happy with their purchase. Schwarts suggests that knowing all the options you didn't choose makes you question your choice, and makes you less satisfied with it. You always wonder whether you shouldn't have chosen that other one....

I think A is a bit peevish because of all those choices presented in that shop. I think she's also realizing at some level that having a bear, or having a bear in a certain outfit, doesn't actually change your life much. It's nice to have, sure (even though our home is already a stuffed animal zoo). But you still live in the same place, and you still have an obnoxious brother who bugs you, and it doesn't really change anything. At least I hope that these are some of the lessons she's absorbing.