Columbia University Business School professor Sheena S. Iyengar once conducted an experiment in which she set up a tasting booth with a variety of exotic gourmet jams at an upscale grocery store. Sometimes the booth had 6 different jams, and sometimes it had 24 different jams on display. Iyengar wanted to see whether the number of jam choices made any difference in the number of jams sold. Conventional economic wisdom, of course, says that the more choices consumers have, the more likely they are to buy, because it is easier for consumers to find the jam that perfectly fits their needs. But the researcher found the opposite to be true. Of those who stopped by the 6-choice booth, 30 percent ended up buying some jam, while only 3 percent of those who stopped by the bigger booth bought anything. Why is that? Because buying jam is a snap decision. You say to yourself, instinctively, 'I want that one.' And if given too many choices, if forced to consider much more than the unconscious is comfortable with, the buyer becomes paralyzed. Snap judgments can be made in a snap simply because there are not that many options to choose from.