Our decisions about information – whether to confront it or avoid it – are not only functional but often emotional. We constantly shift between the desire to know and the instinct to protect ourselves from information, weighing which will hurt less: the painful truth or the uncertainty.
It’s reasonable to assume that people look for information and develop knowledge to improve their decisions and judgments; to believe that they avoid painful information that could hurt their feelings; and that they’re more likely to do so when the information can’t improve their future decisions and judgements.
A new study – by Prof. Yaniv Shani of the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and behavioral researcher Prof. Marcel Zeelenberg of the Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the Netherlands – reveals a surprising insight into how we deal with information.
Contrary to the common view that “willful ignorance” is primarily a way to avoid moral responsibility toward others, the study offers a much broader explanation: Sometimes we avoid information and sometimes we deliberately seek painful information. This enables us to regulate our own emotions and manage psychological overload.
The study has just been published in the journal Current Opinion in Psychology under the title “The pain of suspecting and the comforts of knowing the worst.” It presents a broad review of psychological literature in which the researchers examine recent empirical studies, along with their own research on avoiding useful information and seeking other information that serves no practical purpose.
Avoidance does not mean indifference
ACCORDING TO the findings, many people delay receiving important information because they fear its emotional consequences. For example, many prefer to avoid looking at their investment portfolio during a market downturn or to not check their medical test results before a vacation. This avoidance does not stem from indifference, but rather from a desire to postpone the moment of emotional confrontation.
But alongside avoidance, Shani said, “the study points to an opposite behavior that serves the same emotional regulation mechanism. In situations of uncertainty, people actively seek painful information, even when it offers no benefit. For instance, consumers often check the prices of products they have already purchased, just to know whether they lost money – despite the fact that their initial decision cannot be undone. This phenomenon was especially evident after the October 7 attack in Israel, when many families sought to learn the fate of their loved ones, even when they knew the information might be devastating. In such cases, the pain of uncertainty seemingly outweighs the pain of knowing.”
The new research focuses on how anticipated or experienced counterfactual emotions influence and bias behavioral choices. Such emotions include elation, regret, relief or disappointment that arise from comparing reality to imagined, alternative scenarios (“what if..”). They occur when people mentally alter past events (such as “If only I had gone to college”) or present situations (“I could be doing something else”) to explore better or worse outcomes.
“We aimed at identifying reasons that motivate people to search for useless information (e.g., why consumers compare prices of products purchased a while ago),” Shani said. His research about the psychological principles underpinning consumers’ economic behaviors examines the repercussions of inserting an economic transaction mindset into a social relationship, such as mixing money and friendship. It also aims at discovering the link between self-deception proclivities and consumers’ choices – and explains how consumers justify the purchase of products they do not really need.
WILLFUL IGNORANCE extends to personal choices, since people avoid information to protect emotional balance. Avoiding information can delay distress, while seeking painful truths can bring closure and relieve uncertainty. Both avoiding useful and seeking painful information help manage emotional readiness and needs.
The two seemingly contradictory tendencies clarify intriguing questions – why would people seek out painful information that seemingly is worth something as a means to an end but not for its own sake, yet choose to remain ignorant of actionable information?
The decision to seek out or avoid information is often shaped by a combination of self-interest and moral responsibility toward others. Individuals may engage in willful ignorance not only when they intend to cause harm but also as a way to shield themselves from the emotional burden of acknowledging the consequences of their actions. But this tendency is not absolute: in some situations, people deliberately seek information about the potential harm they may cause.
By comparing these patterns, they constructed a simple model based on two questions: “Am I able to bear uncertainty?” and “Am I able to bear the truth?” The researchers’ findings show that both behaviors – avoidance of information and information seeking – come from the same emotional mechanism that tries to regulate and balance the fear of knowing against the pain of not knowing.
Shani and Zeelenberg emphasized that “this dynamic arises not only in social contexts, but also in moral situations in which individuals have to confront themselves. Sometimes people prefer ‘not to know’ how their actions affect others so they will not feel guilty. But when avoiding information risks causing serious harm to others, it’s the very inability to bear uncertainty that compels them to confront the truth.”
Understanding decision-making in an information-saturated world
THE STUDY offers a new way to understand the decisions people make in an information-saturated world. People constantly navigate between the desire to know and the need to protect themselves, weighing which option will hurt less: the truth or uncertainty. In an era where information is always within reach, the study highlights that what we know is not the only thing that matters; equally important is how we feel when we choose to know, or decide to remain in the dark.
The two seemingly contradictory tendencies clarify intriguing questions: why would people seek out painful information that seemingly holds no practical value, yet choose to remain ignorant of actionable information? If the desire to know is so strong, under what conditions does willful ignorance prevail? And how does this paradox connect to the psychological need for closure?
“The decision to seek out or avoid information is often shaped by a combination of self-interest and moral responsibility toward others,” Shani concluded. “Individuals may engage in willful ignorance not only when they intend to cause harm but also as a way to shield themselves from the emotional burden of acknowledging the consequences of their actions. However, this tendency is not absolute. In some situations, individuals deliberately seek information about the potential harm they may cause.”
This study shows that, in an information-saturated world, most of us navigate a balance between wanting and not wanting to know.