Jam experment In 2000, psychologists Iyengar, Jiang and Huber | Self Education

Jam experment

In 2000, psychologists Iyengar, Jiang and Huberman introduced two hypotheses:

1. The wider the variety of assortment, the easier it is for customers to make a choice. When there are many options, they feel more confident that they have found the best option.

2. However, too many options can lead to “choice overload” (choice overload). In such a situation, the motivation of making a decision weakens. In other words, when a person sees more options, it attracts his attention better, but in the final he may not make a choice at all.

These behaviors of customers are perfectly illustrated by the well-known “experiment with jam”. In one of California grocery stores, researchers installed two tasting racks with jams of exotic varieties. For the first time the researches proposed trying 6 kinds of jam to the people. For the second there were 24 kind of jams.

Researchers were interested in two points: the number of people who showed interest in the racks, and the number of purchases that were made after the tasting.

As a result, a rack with 24 varieties of jam attracted 150% more tasters than the second one. Nevertheless, the opposite situation happened with shopping. 30% of people who tried 6 kinds of jam made purchases. Only 3% of people who chose from 24 varieties bought jams.

The experiment shows us that people tend to have high-expectations of the product, but in the end, this reduces the motivation to purchase. Part of this behavior is due to the so-called "cognitive load" on the human memory.

Excessive number of options leads to the fact that customers are simply lost. It is difficult for them to objectively compare the options and choose the best among them. Most people would prefer to refuse the choice altogether and go on.

In the experiment with jam it happened. The more options, the higher the risk of making a mistake with the choice.

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