Paradox of Choice

Biological Parallel

Choice overload is measurable across animal taxa. Grey treefrogs select high-quality mates from two options but choose randomly from eight. Acorn ants accurately evaluate two nest sites but randomize among eight. Guppies resort to mate-choice copying when group size exceeds their evaluation capacity. Bees use satisficing thresholds when foraging among flower patches. The unifying constraint is working memory: nervous systems evolved for small-set comparison produce degraded decisions when options scale beyond processing capacity.