Entropy-driven decision-making dynamics sheds light on the emergence of the "paradox of choice"

Abstract

Decision making is the cognitive process of selecting a course of action among multiple alternatives. As the decision maker belongs to a complex microenvironment (which contains multiple decision makers), has to make a decision where multiple options are present which often leads to a phenomenon known as the "paradox of choices". The latter refers to the case where too many options can lead to negative outcomes, such as increased uncertainty, decision paralysis, and frustration. Here, we employ an entropy driven mechanism within a statistical physics framework to explain the premises of the paradox. In turn, we focus on the emergence of a collective "paradox of choice", in the case of interacting decision-making agents, quantified as the decision synchronization time. Our findings reveal a trade-off between synchronization time and the sensing radius, indicating the optimal conditions for information transfer among group members, which significantly depends the individual sensitivity parameters. Interestingly, when agents sense their microenvironment in a biased way or their decisions are influenced by their past choices, then the collective "paradox of choice" does not occur. In a nutshell, our theory offers a low-dimensional and unified statistical explanation of the "paradox of choice" at the individual and at the collective level.