We naturally assume choice is a good thing. And from there, it's logical, perhaps, to think that because having options is good, the more choice we have the better. In an Sciam-article titled, 'The Tyranny of Choice', Barry Schwartz, professor of social theory and social action at Swarthmore College, wrote: "Although some choice is undoubtedly better than none, more is not always better than less." Schwartz conducted his own research and, in doing so, categorizes his subjects into "maximizers" and "satisficers." Maximizers are "those who always aim to make the best possible choice" and satisficers are "those who aim for 'good enough'." Through Schwartz's study, it was found that maximizers are the least happy. "Naturally, no one can check every option, but maximizers strive toward that goal, and so making a decision becomes increasingly daunting as the number of choices rises. There are several factors that explain why more choice is not always better than less, especially for maximizers -- one being what economists call "opportunity costs," which is to say that any given choice can't be assessed in isolation from the alternatives. So, the cost of choosing 'A' is the loss of opportunity that would have come if you had chose 'B.' "If we assume that opportunity costs reduce the overall desirability of the most preferred choice, then the more alternatives there are, the deeper our sense of loss will be and the less satisfaction we will derive from our ultimate decision," Schwartz explains. <source>

Schartz and his co-workers believe that feelings of well-being initially rise as choice increases (blue line) but then level off quickly (good feelings satiate). Meanwhile, although zero choice evokes virtually infinite unhappiness, bad feelings escalate (red line) as we go from having few choices to many. The net result is that, at some point, added choice only decreases happiness (inverse U-shaped curve).

Thanks to Richard Stastny for that pointer.