雅思阅读中不乏有关社会方面的材料，这些材料虽然很抽象，但是可以给我们的人生以很大启发。以下这篇关于choice and happiness的文章，虽然主要目的是为了让大家进行阅读训练，但也希望广大考生能够在这篇雅思阅读真题材料中汲取到些许的人生哲理。环球教育(原环球教育)小编在这里祝愿大家能够正确迈出人生的每一步!

　　A Americans today choose among more optionsin more parts of life than has ever been possiblebefore. To an extent, the opportunity to chooseenhances our lives. It is only logical to think that ifsome choice is good, more is better; people whocare about having infinite options will benefit fromthem, and those who do not can always just ignore the 273 versions of cereal they havenever tried. Yet recent research strongly suggests that, psychologically, this assumption iswrong. Although some choice is undoubtedly better than none, more is not always better thanless.

　　B Recent research offers insight into why many people end up unhappy rather thanpleased when their options expand. We began by making a distinction between "maximizers" (those who always aim to make the best possible choice) and "satisficers" (those who aim for"good enough," whether or not better selections might be out there).

　　C In particular, we composed a set of statements—the Maximization Scale—to diagnosepeople's propensity to maximize. Then we had several thousand people rate themselves from1 to 7 (from "completely disagree" to "completely agree") on such statements as "I neversettle for second best." We also evaluated their sense, of satisfaction with their decisions. Wedid not define a sharp cutoff to separate maximizers from satisficers, but in general, we thinkof individuals whose average scores are higher than 4 (the scale's midpoint) as maximizers andthose whose scores are lower than the midpoint as satisficers. People who score highest on thetest—the greatest maximizers—engage in more product comparisons than the lowest scorers,both before and after they make purchasing decisions, and they take longer to decide what tobuy. When satisficers find an item that meets their standards, they stop looking. Butmaximizers exert enormous effort reading labels, checking out consumer magazines and tryingnew products. They also spend more time comparing their purchasing decisions with those ofothers.

　　D We found that the greatest maximizers are the least happy with the fruits of their efforts.When they compare themselves with others, they get little pleasure from finding out that theydid better and substantial dissatisfaction from finding out that they did worse. They are moreprone to experiencing regret after a purchase, and if their acquisition disappoints them, theirsense of well-being takes longer to recover. They also tend to brood or ruminate more thansatisficers do.

　　E Does it follow that maximizers are less happy in general than satisficers? We tested thisby having people fill out a variety of questionnaires known to be reliable indicators of well-being. As might be expected, individuals with high maximization scores experienced lesssatisfaction with life and were less happy, less optimistic and more depressed than peoplewith low maximization scores. Indeed, those with extreme maximization ratings haddepression scores that placed them in the borderline clinical range.

　　F Several factors explain why more choice is not always better than less, especially formaximizers. High among these are "opportunity costs." The quality of any given optioncannot be assessed in isolation from its alternatives. One of the "costs" of making a selection islosing the opportunities that a different option would have afforded. Thus an opportunity costof vacationing on the beach in Cape Cod might be missing the fabulous restaurants in the NapaValley. If we assume that opportunity costs reduce the overall desirability of the mostpreferred choice, then the more alternatives there are, the deeper our sense of loss will be andthe less satisfaction we will derive from our ultimate decision.