The world’s population can be divided into two groups of people: the satisficers who find suitable options and quit searching, and the maximizers who may search indefinitely for that perfect option.
At least, that was the idea political scientist Herbert Simon came up with a half century ago, and according to the Columbia Ideas at Work article “The Pursuit of Happiness,” it recently informed research on job-seeking behavior by Columbia Business School professor Sheena Iyengar.
By studying graduating college seniors who were looking for jobs and classifying them as satisficers and maximizers, Iyengar found:
- Maximizers were more competitive and applied on average for twice as many jobs as the satisficers.
- Maximizers received more job offers and obtained starting salaries about 20 percent higher than the satisficers.
- However, the satisficers were happier with their jobs. The maximizers continued to think about options and “wonder about jobs they hadn’t applied for and conjure up idealized jobs that didn’t even exist,” says Iyengar.
- Whereas satisficers planned to stay at their jobs for at least a year, maximizers were more likely to begin searching for another job within the year.
Iyengar concluded that maximizers do better financially, but satisficers are often happier. Even in situations where maximizers control their number of options (e.g., jobs they apply for), it often seemed as if the options were controlling them. According to Iyengar:
Even when job seekers could stop the process, and even when they didn’t have a lot of job offers to deal with, choice still got in the way. They just couldn’t stop thinking about it. They still imagined choices. And it interfered with their happiness.
Have your maximizer tendencies ever gotten in the way of your happiness at work? Or do you think it’s good to always keep one eye open to better options?
