YOU KNOW THAT feeling. TFW you're in the market for a new phone, and you can't decide which one to buy. For the past month, if you're an Apple fan, chances are you've been feeling that feel a bit more than usual. This year, like every year, Apple released new phones—the iPhones 8 and 8 Plus. But they also released a newer phone. A "say hello to the future" phone. The iPhone X. It's got an edge-to-edge display, more and better cameras, and a certain je ne sais pas that just—wait, no. Lol, no, you totally sais. It's the fanciest phone Apple's ever made. It goes on sale tonight. And lord help you, you want it. You want it so bad.
But heavens, that price: $999, to start. Can you afford it? No. But financing. No! You're not falling for that again. You'll go with the iPhone 8 Plus. It's boring, but shut up, you will love it.
But then wait, you forgot: The iPhone X also has that sick OLED screen, and emoji you control with your face! Totally worth the extra few hundred dollars. What price can you really put on a talking pile of poop? The answer is no price. Talking poop is priceless.
Sounds like you have a tough decision to make.
Turns out psychologists have names for this kind of decision, and the hemming and hawing that goes into it.
"It's a classic example of what we call a multi-attribute decision task," says Ben Newell, a cognitive psychologist at the University of New South Wales Sydney and co-author of Straight Choices: The Psychology of Decision Making. It's a fancy term for situations in which you consider multiple options, each with attributes you use to inform your decision. If you've ever shopped for a laptop, a TV, a blender—anything that lends itself to a spec-sheet comparison or a 20,000-word Wirecutter review—you've grappled with a multi-attribute decision.
This is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Accordingly, it is difficult to figure out when to end it. But then, this is dummy text. It is not meant to be read. Period.