A500.4.3.RB_MyersCatherine - Ballet Slippers or Adorable?

Upon the completion of watching the TED video about choices as told by Dr. Iyengar, I was very intrigued by her research. I agree with her perspectives on choice. Having choices is not always a good thing. Additionally, enjoying and appreciating choices are different depending on your background and how you were raised. Americans tend to feel freedom in making choices. Americans tend to be apprehensive when they discover that their choices are removed. This to me, is due to the mindset of Americans. Americans tend to feel like something is taken from them when they do not have the ability to make their own choices. But often times, it may be easier to not have a choice, for example, when Dr. Iyengar was speaking about taking your baby off the ventilator. I feel that this point rang true when Dr. Iyengar did her action research on the children selecting their activity. The American children did better when they were able to choose the activity as well as the color of the marker they used. Asian American children on the other hand did better on their activity when their parents chose for them. This is due to how choices are viewed in their culture or society. This ties into leadership because certain people thrive better when they are directly told what, when and how to do something. Others thrive when they are given a choice and when they can be creative. I really enjoyed Dr. Iyengar’s final action research project when she was talking about the nail polishes. Names and descriptions of the nail polishes affected how you views them, basically, how they ‘looked’ to the consumer. I don’t think that is something that I would have thought about before. Her perspective is completely different because she is blind. She needed to rely on what others said about the nail polishes. When she decided to find out why they described the nail polishes in that particular way, she found out that the polishes were actually almost identical, leading me to believe that this was a marketing ploy. Ultimately, I agree with the points that Dr. Iyengar made about choices. I did not think about them in the perspective of how culture depends on how you react to choice.