Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
Max Planck Institute for Collective Goods, Bonn, Germany.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2016 May;11(3):359-72. doi: 10.1177/1745691616635594.
Western history of thought abounds with claims that knowledge is valued and sought. Yet people often choose not to know. We call the conscious choice not to seek or use knowledge (or information) deliberate ignorance. Using examples from a wide range of domains, we demonstrate that deliberate ignorance has important functions. We systematize types of deliberate ignorance, describe their functions, discuss their normative desirability, and consider how they can be modeled. To date, psychologists have paid relatively little attention to the study of ignorance, let alone the deliberate kind. Yet the desire not to know is no anomaly. It is a choice to seek rather than reduce uncertainty whose reasons require nuanced cognitive and economic theories and whose consequences-for the individual and for society-require analyses of both actor and environment.
西方思想史中有很多观点认为知识是有价值和值得追求的。然而，人们常常选择不去求知。我们将有意识地选择不去寻求或使用知识（或信息）称为故意无知。通过来自广泛领域的例子，我们证明了故意无知具有重要的功能。我们对故意无知的类型进行了系统分类，描述了它们的功能，讨论了它们在规范上的可取性，并考虑了如何对它们进行建模。迄今为止，心理学家对无知的研究相对较少，更不用说对故意无知的研究了。然而，不想知道并不是异常现象。这是一种选择，是寻求而不是减少不确定性的选择，其原因需要细致的认知和经济理论，而其对个人和社会的后果——需要对行为者和环境进行分析。
