Sheena Iyengar

1
Sheena Iyengar
Sheena Iyengar
Born November 29, 1969
Nationality American
Almamater Stanford University
University of Pennsylvania
Occupation S.T. Lee Professor of Business and Director of Global Leadership Matrix
Employer Columbia Business School
Knownfor Academic research on Choice
Sheena Iyengar (born 1969) is the inaugural S.T. Lee Professor of Business in the Management Division at
Columbia Business School
[1][2][3]
and the Director of the Global Leadership Matrix initiative. She is known for her
research on choice.
Biography
Sheena Iyengar was born in Toronto, Canada in 1969. Her parents had emigrated there from Delhi, India. In 1972,
Iyengars family moved to Flushing, Queens, where her father helped establish the first permanent Sikh temple; and
in 1979, the family moved to Elmwood Park, New Jersey.
[4]
Iyengar grew up in a bicultural environment, observing
the tenets of Sikhism with her family but partaking in American culture outside of the home.
When Iyengar was three years old, she was diagnosed with a rare form of retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited disease
of retinal degeneration. By 6th grade, Iyengar had lost the ability to read, and by 11th grade, she had lost her sight
entirely and could only perceive light. Iyengars life had also taken another turn in high school; when she was 13, her
father died of a heart attack.
In Iyengars book, The Art of Choosing, she explains how these seemingly random events and external influences,
which shaped her life, led her to become interested in choice:
"My parents had chosen to come to this country, but they had also chosen to hold on to as much of India as
possible. They lived among other Sikhs, followed closely the tenets of their religion, and taught me the value
of obedience. What to eat, wear, study, and later on, where to work and whom to marryI was to allow these
to be determined by the rules of Sikhism and by my familys wishes. But in public school I learned that it was
Sheena Iyengar
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not only natural but desirable that I should make my own decisions. It was not a matter of cultural background
or personality or abilities; it was simply what was true and right. For a blind Sikh girl otherwise subject to so
many restrictions, this was a very powerful idea. I could have thought of my life as already written, which
would have been more in line with my parents views. Or I could have thought of it as a series of accidents
beyond my control, which was one way to account for my blindness and my fathers death. However, it
seemed much more promising to think of it in terms of choice, in terms of what was still possible and what I
could make happen." (Iyengar, 2010, pp. xi-xii).
In 1992, Sheena Iyengar graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in economics from the Wharton
School and a B.A. in psychology with a minor in English from the College of Arts and Sciences. She then earned her
Ph.D. in social psychology from Stanford University in 1997. The following year, her dissertation, Choice and its
Discontents, which asks the question: are there circumstances in which people are better off when they have their
choices limited or entirely removed, received the prestigious Best Dissertation Award for 1998 from the Society of
Experimental Social Psychology.
Academic career
Iyengar's focal line of research concerns choosing, and she has been studying how people perceive and respond to
choice for two decades.
[5][6][7][8]
This work, as well as her work on globalization, has earned Iyengar much
recognition. In 2002, she was the recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Social Scientists for her work
on cultural differences in decision making. Her research appears in academic journals of a wide range of disciplines
such as economics, psychology, management, and marketing. Not only is her work acclaimed in academia, but it has
also attracted attention in other venues, as well. Her research has been cited in such periodicals as Fortune and Time
magazines, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as on popular television programs such as The
Today Show and The Daily Show. Her award-winning book, The Art of Choosing, which explores the mysteries of
choice in everyday life, was listed in Amazon.coms top ten books in Business & Investing of 2010 and shortlisted
for the 2010 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.
Iyengar has taught courses in Management at Columbia Business School since 1998. Specifically, she has taught
courses in Globalization, Leadership, Entrepreneurial Creativity, and Decision Making to MBAs, Executive MBAs,
and Executives. In 2011, she was named a member of the Thinkers50, a global ranking of the top 50 management
thinkers. She was recently awarded with the Deans Award for Outstanding Core Teaching from Columbia Business
School, and chosen as one of the Worlds Best B-School Professors by Poets and Quants.
Sheena Iyengar is an Academic Member of the Behavioral Finance Forum, a Fellow at the Applied Statistics Center
at Columbia University, an Oversight Board Member at the ING Institute for Retirement Research, and an Institute
Fellow at TIAA-CREF. She has previously been a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study and has received many
grants from university, government and corporate institutions.
One of her most famous experiments, as recorded in her book The Art of Choosing, is known as the jam study. After
testing consumer response to qualitative differences in jam variety, she concluded that consumers who encountered
fewer choices in jam were much more likely to buy the product than those who encountered a much greater
assortment.
Sheena Iyengar
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Published works
Eternal Quest for the Best: Sequential (vs. Simultaneous) Option Presentation Undermines Choice Commitment
[9]
(Forthcoming 2012)
The Discriminating Consumer: Product Proliferation and Willingness to Pay for Quality
[10]
(2012)
Perceiving Freedom Givers: Effects of Granting Decision Latitude on Personality and Leadership Perceptions
[11]
(2011)
Born to Choose: The Origins and Value of the Need for Control
[12]
(2010)
Choice Proliferation, Simplicity Seeking, and Asset Allocation
[13]
(2010)
Order in Product Customization Decisions: Evidence from Field Experiments
[14]
(2010)
Medium of Exchange Matters: What's Fair for Goods Is Unfair for Money
[15]
(2010)
The Art of Choosing
[16]
(2010)
Tragic Choices: Autonomy and Emotional Response to Medical Decisions
[17]
(2009)
The Mere Categorization Effect: How the Presence of Categories Increases Choosers' Perceptions of Assortment
Variety and Outcome Satisfaction
[18]
(2006)
Gender Differences in Mate Selection: Evidence from a Speed Dating Experiment
[19]
(2006)
Doing Better but Feeling Worse: Looking for the "Best" Job Undermines Satisfaction
[20]
(2006)
How Much Choice is Too Much? Contributions to 401(k) Retirement Plans
[21]
(2004)
The Psychological Pleasure and Pain of Choosing: When People Prefer Choosing at the Cost of Subsequent
Outcome Satisfaction
[22]
(2004)
When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?
[23]
(2000)
Rethinking the Value of Choice: A Cultural Perspective on Intrinsic Motivation
[24]
(1999)
Optimism and Fundamentalism
[25]
(1993)
Awards and honors
Title Organization Date
Worlds Best B-School Professors: Sheena Iyengar Columbia Business School October 2012
Deans Award for Outstanding Core Teaching Columbia Business School September 2012
Best Article Award Journal of Consumer Research September 2012
Voted Among Top 50 Most Influential Business Thinkers Thinkers50 November 2011
#4 Bestseller (Japanese edition) Amazon.co.jp March & December
2011
#4 Non-Fiction Bestseller India Today August September
2011
Publisher's Award for Excellence India Abroad June 2011
Honoree Sikh Centennial Gala April 2011
Gold Medal in General Business & Economics Axiom Business Book Awards March 2011
Top Ten Business & Investing Books of 2010 Amazon.com November 2010
Business Book of the Year 2010 Shortlist Financial Times and Goldman Sachs September 2010
Innovation in the Curriculum Teaching Award School
(Group Award)
Columbia Business School Fall 2005
Presidential Early Career Award for Social Scientists Executive Office of the President Office of Science and
Technology Policy
January 2002
Young Investigator Career Award National Science Foundation July 2001
Sheena Iyengar
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Best Dissertation Award Society for Experimental Social Psychology October 1998
Fellowships
Title Organization Incumbency
Director Global Leadership Matrix 2012 Present
Faculty Advisory Board Member Center on Japanese Economy and Business 2012 Present
Fellow Society for Personality and Social Psychology 2011 Present
Faculty Advisory Committee Member & Research Director Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business 2009 Present
Advisory Board Member ING Institute for Retirement Research 2008 Present
Fellow Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University 2008 Present
Institute Fellow TIAA-CREF Institute 2007 Present
Academic Member Behavioral Finance Forum 2007 Present
Invited Fellow Institute for Advanced Study 2005 2006
References
[1] http:/ / www. columbia.edu/ ~ss957/ index.shtml
[2] http:/ / iyengar.socialpsychology. org/
[3] http:/ / www4.gsb. columbia.edu/ cbs-directory/ detail/ 494889/ Sheena+ Iyengar
[4] [4] Iyengar, Sheena (2010). The Art of Choosing. Twelve. ISBN 0-446-50410-6
[5] Iyengar, S. S., & DeVoe, S.E. (2003). Rethinking the Value of Choice: A Cultural Perspective on Intrinsic Motivation. In Murphy-Berman,
V. & Berman, J. (Eds.). Cross-Cultural Differences in Perspectives on the Self, 49, 129-174. London: University of Nebraska Press.
[6] Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. (2000). When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing? Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 79, 995-1006.
[7] Botti, S., Orfali, K., & Iyengar, S.S. (2009). Tragic Choices: Autonomy and Emotional Response to Medical Decisions. Journal of Consumer
Research, 36 (3), 337-352.
[8] Iyengar, S.S., Wells, R.E., & Schwartz, B. (2006). Doing Better but Feeling Worse: Looking for the "Best" Job Undermines Satisfaction.
Psychological Science, 17 (2), 143-150.
[9] http:/ / www. columbia.edu/ ~ss957/ working/ Simultaneous%20vs. %20Sequential. pdf
[10] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ The%20Discriminating%20Consumer. pdf
[11] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ Decision%20Latitude. pdf
[12] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ Born%20to%20Choose. pdf
[13] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ Simplicity%20Seeking%20Final. pdf
[14] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ Order_and_Product_Customization. pdf
[15] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ Medium%20of%20Exchange%20matters. pdf
[16] http:/ / www.amazon. com/ The-Art-Choosing-Sheena-Iyengar/ dp/ B0085RZDMK/ ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8& qid=1356856532& sr=8-1&
keywords=the+ art+ of+ choosing
[17] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ TragicChoices_BottiOrfaliIyengar. pdf
[18] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ The%20Mere%20Categorization%20Effect%20final. pdf
[19] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ Gender%20Differences%20in%20Mate%20Selection. pdf
[20] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ Doing_Better_Feeling_Worse. pdf
[21] http:/ / www.pensionresearchcouncil. org/ publications/ document. php?file=78
[22] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ The%20Psychological%20Pleasure. PDF
[23] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ Choice_is_Demotivating. pdf
[24] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ Rethinking_the_Value_of_Choice. pdf
[25] http:/ / www.columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ articles/ Optimism%20and%20Fundamentalism. pdf
Sheena Iyengar
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External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sheena Iyengar.
Sheena Iyengar's Personal Website (http:/ / www. sheenaiyengar. com/ )
Sheena Iyengar's Columbia Homepage (http:/ / www. columbia. edu/ ~ss957/ index. shtml)
The Jerome A. Chazen Institute of International Business at Columbia Business School (http:/ / www4. gsb.
columbia. edu/ chazen)
Sheena Iyengar on "The Multiple Choice Problem" Youtube Playlist (http:/ / www. youtube. com/
view_play_list?p=E41F2DC2E9A8A042& search_query=sheena+ iyengar)
Sheena Iyengar discusses her book, The Art of Choosing Youtube Video (http:/ / www. youtube. com/
watch?v=1p-QWwYMsB4)
Sheena Iyengar on the art of choosing, TED Talk (http:/ / www. ted. com/ talks/
sheena_iyengar_on_the_art_of_choosing. html)
Article Sources and Contributors
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Article Sources and Contributors
Sheena Iyengar Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=614519120 Contributors: Addere, Alan Liefting, Alansohn, Bzweebl, Clayoquot, Dwscomet, Gis72, Gisaster25, Gnezelocin,
JPbio, January, Jguldahl, Kvng, LilHelpa, Logical Cowboy, Magioladitis, Mar4d, Moondyne, RegentsPark, Rich Farmbrough, Srujanachavala, Tassedethe, Themightyboo, ThomasBeakbane,
Waacstats, Wavelength, 22 anonymous edits
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors
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