Ah yes, social proof and the mere-exposure effect both corroborate Nikhil's original idea that people tend to avoid making what others may perceive as arbitrary decisions. People are hardwired for conformity and to take cues from those around them. However, this doesn't prevent people from being driven to make decisions that appear arbitrary to others when they themselves feel compelled or motivated to do so.
Nikhil specifically brings up the example of an individual choosing a career path that their parents or friends chose, because picking from the myriads available options can be overwhelming and arbitrary. He backs this up with the example of someone giving a non-standard response to a time query, like 4:41pm - something that wouldn't make much sense unless there was a specific reason behind it.
Rather than being paralyzed by the paradox of choice, Nikhil's explanation actually suggests that people fear the arbitraryness of their choices and strive to make decisions that don't appear arbitrary to outsiders. UrRong! We can still have our cake and eat it too by picking a more arbitrary option - as long as we can come up with a good enough explanation for why we chose it.