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True to our observation that middle-class Americans have primarily positive associations with choice, we found that among participants with at least a college degree, those who got to choose their pen liked it more than those who were given a pen they hadn't chosen. Here, take this one." The participant was then given another pen to answer the list of questions. It's the last one of its kind that we have. The other half of the time, after the participant chose a pen, the researcher took it away, explaining: "I'm sorry, you can't have that pen. Half the time, the participant then used the chosen pen to answer a list of questions, including several about how much he or she liked the pen. The researcher displayed five different black pens and invited the participant to choose one to keep.
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Our researchers approached shoppers at malls and airports and asked them to take part in a marketing study. One set of studies used an approach common to many social-psychology experiments: an everyday setting and a deliberately mundane task were exploited to reveal significant psychological processes. Several experimental studies also show how these divergent conceptions of freedom and choice shape working- and middle-class Americans' daily lives.
#Another word for things one is knowledgeable about free#
We found that rock lyrics had a lot more talk of choice, control and self-expression, as in the Rolling Stones' refrain, "'Cause I'm free to do what I want any old time." But when we analyzed country music, preferred over rock by less-educated Americans in every region, we heard more mentions of self-protection and defense, as in Darryl Worley's observation, "We didn't get to keep by backin' down." When choice was mentioned, it was often as a prelude or coda to tragedy, as in George Jones's lament "Now I'm living and dying with the choices I've made." In every region, Americans with higher education and higher incomes typically prefer rock music over country. We also analyzed how freedom and choice are presented in one of our most pervasive and influential cultural products: popular songs. In a recent study with Nicole Stephens at Stanford University, we asked college students to pick "three adjectives that best capture what the word 'choice' means to you." A higher percentage of those who had parents with a college education said "freedom," "action" and "control," while more of those whose parents had only a high-school education responded with "fear," "doubt" and "difficulty." And so in our research we often identify social class with education. Social class is difficult to measure - it's a complicated amalgam of education, income and occupational prestige - but in the U.S.'s quasi meritocracy, education has arguably become its most important facet. For them, being free is less about making choices that reflect their uniqueness and mastery and more about being left alone, with their personality, integrity and well-being intact. Working-class Americans often have fewer resources and experience greater uncertainty and insecurity. Most Americans, however, are not from the college-educated middle and upper classes.
#Another word for things one is knowledgeable about how to#
The education, income and upbringing of these Americans grant them choices about how to live their lives and also encourage them to express their preferences and personalities through the choices they make. Instead, Americans are increasingly bewildered - not liberated - by the sheer volume of choices they must make in a day.Īs behavioral scientists, we have found that the people who frame freedom in terms of choice are usually the ones who get to make a lot of choices - that is, middle- and upper-class white Americans (most of our study participants are white we can't make any claims about other racial and ethnic groups). And second, even for those who do equate freedom with choice, having more choice does not seem to make them feel freer. First, most Americans do not think that freedom is about exercising more and more choice. Choice is what enables all of us to live exactly the kind of lives we want to and think we should.īut this "wisdom" is suspect for two reasons.
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This is why we now regard 32 kinds of jam in the supermarket, 50 styles of jeans in the department store and 120 retirement plans in the workplace as signs of both economic progress and moral and political progress. Choice, even in mundane matters, embodies the larger ideal of the individual as arbiter not just of what tastes or feels good but also of what is good. In today's America, everyone from President Bush to advertising executives to liberal activists appears to agree that freedom is about having choices and that having more choices means having more freedom.