“The Art of Choosing explores the cultural, social, and biological forces on the complex process of decision-making but is also deeply personal. Watch a Facebook-exclusive short video from Sheena Iyengar: 'Ballet Slippers' > What others say

Her book The Art of Choosing shares her research in an accessible and charming story that draws examples from her own life. Her analysis touches, for example, on the medical decisionmaking that might lead up to choosing physician-assisted suicide, on the drawbacks of providing too many choices and options in social-welfare programs, and on the cultural and geographical underpinning of choice.

But she and her team at the Columbia Business School throw a much broader net. Iyengar's research has been informing business and consumer-goods marketing since the 1990s. (This and subsequent, equally ingenious experiments have provided rich material for Malcolm Gladwell and other pop chroniclers of business and the human psyche.) If you want improved insight into your quirky little mind and practical tips for improving future decision making, read on. Iyengar, Professor of Business at Colombia Business School delves into extensive research on how and why we choose. For instance, her famous 'jam study,' done while she was a grad student, quantified a counterintuitive truth about decisionmaking - that when we're presented with too many choices, like 24 varieties of jam, we tend not to choose anything at all. Start with The Art of Choosing summary, based on the book by Sheena Iyengar. Sheena Iyengar looks deeply at choosing and has discovered many surprising things about it. We all think we're good at making choices many of us even enjoy making them.

The Art of Choosing by Sheena Iyengar