Tversky and Kahneman first studied the paradox of choice in '79. Ariely built on it for half his career. The psychological argument is that when we have a lot of choices we have to evaluate all those choices and evolutionarily, we're driven to answer questions quickly for the sake of survival. What I don't like about this analysis is it is framed in terms of "make your decision" rather than "how we make decisions." for example: That's an evaluation made every day, over and over again. It's not appropriate to describe it as a one-and-done. I also don't like how the universe is being shaped to fit the study: "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" certainly hasn't been an aphorism since the Farmer's Almanac or anything. Yes, we use less information to make decisions than we think. There was a Nobel Prize in Economics for this. We also remake those decisions frequently with new information. For better or worse, we also have an ownership bias - if we possess it, we like it more - and a sour grapes bias, whereby if we didn't decide on it we reinforce our decision with any new information. All of which makes for a more nuanced and complicated situation than a B-school associate professor is willing to admit.How many good performances would convince you that you have hired the right person?
People view the mind as a rational arbiter, assuming that they and others will withhold judgment until they finish flipping through all the evidence.