Center for Research in Experimental Economics and Political Decision Making, University of Amsterdam.
Center for Humans and Machines, Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
Psychol Bull. 2023 Sep-Oct;149(9-10):611-635. doi: 10.1037/bul0000398.
People sometimes avoid information about the impact of their actions as an excuse to be selfish. Such "willful ignorance" reduces altruistic behavior and has detrimental effects in many consumer and organizational contexts. We report the first meta-analysis on willful ignorance, testing the robustness of its impact on altruistic behavior and examining its underlying motives. We analyze 33,603 decisions made by 6,531 participants in 56 different treatment effects, all employing variations of an experimental paradigm assessing willful ignorance. Meta-analytic results reveal that 40% of participants avoid easily obtainable information about the consequences of their actions on others, leading to a 15.6-percentage point decrease in altruistic behavior compared to when information is provided. We discuss the motives behind willful ignorance and provide evidence consistent with excuse-seeking behaviors to maintain a positive self-image. We investigate the moderators of willful ignorance and address the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of our findings on who engages in willful ignorance, as well as when and why. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
人们有时会回避有关自己行为影响的信息，以此作为自私的借口。这种“故意无知”会减少利他行为，并在许多消费者和组织情境中产生不利影响。我们报告了关于故意无知的第一项元分析，检验了其对利他行为的影响的稳健性，并探讨了其潜在动机。我们分析了 56 个不同处理效果中的 6531 名参与者做出的 33603 个决策，所有这些决策都采用了评估故意无知的实验范式的变体。元分析结果表明，40%的参与者回避了关于他们的行为对他人后果的易获得信息，导致与提供信息相比，利他行为减少了 15.6 个百分点。我们讨论了故意无知背后的动机，并提供了与维护积极自我形象的借口寻求行为一致的证据。我们调查了故意无知的调节因素，并探讨了谁会参与故意无知，以及何时和为何参与的理论、方法和实际意义。
