TY - JOUR

T1 - I’m in a Hurry, I Don't Want to Know! Strategic Ignorance Under Time Pressure

AU - Jarke-Neuert, Johannes

AU - Lohse, Johannes

N1 - Funding Information: The research for this article has been partially funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy, cluster EXC 2037 “CLICCS: Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (Project 390683824) and contributes to the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN) of Universität Hamburg. The authors do not declare any conflict of interest. Study materials, experimental instructions, data, and data analysis files are published on the Open Science Framework (OSF) under DOI 10.17605/ OSF.IO/5X3DW or URL https://osf.io/5x3dw/ Publisher Copyright: © 2022 American Psychological Association

PY - 2022/6/23

Y1 - 2022/6/23

N2 - Information avoidance is common when privately beneficial choices have uncertain and potentially adverse effects on others. A dominant theory holds that such “strategic ignorance” allows decision makers to circumvent inner moral conflict while acting self-servingly. In extension of this theory, we hypothesize that time pressure elevates the prevalence of strategic ignorance. We conduct a laboratory experiment with resolvable payoff uncertainty to test this hypothesis. We find that time pressure indeed significantly increases the incidence of information avoidance. As a result, self-serving choices are more common than in a baseline without time pressure. We empirically explore several potential interpretations of this main finding. First, in a control condition, in which payoffs are fully transparent, time pressure has no direct effect on self-serving behavior. This speaks against a general tendency to act more self-servingly or fairly under time pressure. Second, a follow-up study shows that information avoidance under time pressure is attributable to conflict avoidance, rather than providing decision makers with a convenient excuse for not becoming informed.

AB - Information avoidance is common when privately beneficial choices have uncertain and potentially adverse effects on others. A dominant theory holds that such “strategic ignorance” allows decision makers to circumvent inner moral conflict while acting self-servingly. In extension of this theory, we hypothesize that time pressure elevates the prevalence of strategic ignorance. We conduct a laboratory experiment with resolvable payoff uncertainty to test this hypothesis. We find that time pressure indeed significantly increases the incidence of information avoidance. As a result, self-serving choices are more common than in a baseline without time pressure. We empirically explore several potential interpretations of this main finding. First, in a control condition, in which payoffs are fully transparent, time pressure has no direct effect on self-serving behavior. This speaks against a general tendency to act more self-servingly or fairly under time pressure. Second, a follow-up study shows that information avoidance under time pressure is attributable to conflict avoidance, rather than providing decision makers with a convenient excuse for not becoming informed.

KW - Conflict avoidance

KW - Information avoidance

KW - Prosocial behavior

KW - Strategic ignorance

KW - Economics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85133134998&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1037/xge0001222

DO - 10.1037/xge0001222

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 35737530

AN - SCOPUS:85133134998

VL - 151

SP - 2833

EP - 2845

JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

SN - 0096-3445

IS - 11

ER -