A recent psychology study caught my eye because the interpretation seemed bizarre, and possibly misguided. The study involved a survey of several hundred newlywed heterosexual couples, which included a test to see if they were so-called maximizers, who can’t settle for anything but the perfect choice, or satisficers, who can, as the word implies, be satisfied with something that suffices.
And lo and behold, the satisficers were pretty happy with their spouses, but the maximizers were only happy, for the time being, if they had attractive wives (as judged by the researchers) or rich husbands. The way the researchers seemed