On 22 May Professor Sheena S. Iyengar will be coming to DPAG to deliver our Sherrington ‘Public Understanding of Science’ Prize Lecture. Her lecture will be about ‘The art of choosing’. Professor Iyengar is the S.T. Lee Professor of Business in the Management Department at Columbia Business School. She is best known as an expert on choice and her research focuses on the many facets of decision making, including: why people want choice, what affects how and what we choose, and how we can improve our decision making.
Ahead of her lecture, we interviewed Professor Iyengar, to find out more about her career and motivation.
What first inspired you to become a scientist, and how did you come to choose and specialize in your area of research?
As a blind woman of Indian descent growing up in New York City, you can imagine the kinds of questions I faced early on: How many choices do I really have? Which ones are worth making? How do I know what to choose? And more personally, what kinds of choices are even available to someone like me?
What followed those questions were choices—but not always ones I liked. I had options, yes, but few that felt meaningful or empowering. I had to shift my perspective. Instead of simply asking what choices were available to me as a blind person, I began to ask: What choice could I create for myself?
While exploring that question, I discovered the true power of choice. I came to see that many of our most accepted ideas about choice—across philosophy, politics, and science—rest on untested assumptions. That realisation sparked my curiosity, and so I began asking questions others hadn’t. From there, a new path of inquiry began to unfold.
In what ways have you seen the real-world impact of your scientific research?
The impact of my research has manifested across several domains. First, it has contributed to the popular understanding of “FOMO,” or the fear of missing out—a psychological response to the proliferation of choice in modern life. As individuals are increasingly inundated with options, they often experience heightened anxiety, regret, and a sense of missed opportunity, undermining decision satisfaction.
Second, my work has influenced business strategy. Companies such as Aldi, Costco, and Procter & Gamble have adopted deliberate choice-reduction tactics, curating limited product assortments to simplify the decision-making process and enhance consumer confidence. These industry practices align with my research findings that fewer options can lead to more satisfying choices.
Third, in the academic realm, my seminal paper on choice overload has catalysed a significant body of interdisciplinary scholarship. Researchers across psychology, marketing, economics, education, healthcare, and other fields have investigated the generalisability of choice overload across various contexts. To date, over 1000 studies published in more than 130 peer-reviewed papers have examined the phenomenon, further advancing our understanding of how choice architecture shapes human behaviour.
In what direction do you see your research developing over the next few years?
My research has evolved to explore how choice influences innovation and entrepreneurship. Central to this inquiry is the Think Bigger method, a six-step process designed to guide innovators in identifying, framing, and solving complex problems. This framework emphasises the role of deliberate choice-making in each stage of the creative process—from selecting which problems to pursue to evaluating alternative approaches and committing to create a useful, novel solution. By foregrounding choice as an active and strategic piece of the innovation process, the Think Bigger method gives entrepreneurs the cognitive tools to navigate ambiguity, prioritise competing possibilities, and generate solutions that are not only original but viable.
This approach contributes to a growing body of literature at the intersection of decision science and innovation studies, highlighting how intentional constraints and structured decision-making can enhance creative output and entrepreneurial success.
Finally, is there any advice you would give to an early career research scientist (or to a younger you!)
When considering your next steps in research, career, or personal growth, always start by identifying a topic or area that genuinely interests you, but don’t stop there. Passion alone is not a sufficient guide. To make a meaningful impact, it is important to instead focus on questions or challenges where you bring a unique contribution—whether that’s a skill, perspective, or experience others don’t have. The real value lies at the intersection of your capabilities and what others find useful or important.
In doing so, it is important to be mindful of the common misconception that the key to happiness is simply finding what you want and pursuing it. Most people don’t clearly understand what they truly want—and even when they do, their desires don’t always align with what the world needs. That disconnect can lead to frustration or disillusionment.
A more effective approach is to reverse the typical process. First, identify what you’re good at—where your strengths lie and where you can create value. Then, from among those options, ask: which path excites me most? By narrowing your choices this way, you’re more likely to succeed because you’re aligning your efforts with your talents and external demand. And you’re more likely to feel fulfilled because you’ve chosen deliberately and clearly.
This strategy doesn’t just set you up for success—it makes that success more sustainable.