IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v110y2009i1p36-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Different ways of looking at unpleasant truths: How construal levels influence information search

Author

Listed:
  • Shani, Yaniv
  • Igou, Eric R.
  • Zeelenberg, Marcel

Abstract

When not knowing the negative outcome of past decision, people search for more information even when it confirms their negative suspicion. What drives this information search is the hope that the unpleasant state of "not knowing" ends when one faces the truth [Shani, Y., Tykocinski, O. E., & Zeelenberg, M. (2008). When ignorance is not bliss: How distressing uncertainty drives the search of negative information. Journal of Economic Psychology, 29, 643-653; Shani, Y., & Zeelenberg, M. (2007). When and why do we want to know? How experienced regret promotes post-decision information search. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 20, 207-222]. Previous research suggests that adopting high- or low-level construals of a situation can increase or decrease the affective value of experiences [Metcalfe, J., & Mischel, W. (1999). A hot/cool-system analysis of delay of gratification: Dynamics of willpower. Psychological Review, 106, 3-19, Mischel, W., Ayduk, O., & Mendoza-Denton, R. (2003). Sustaining delay of gratification over time: A hot-cool systems perspective. In G. Loewenstein & D. Read (Eds.), Time and decision: Economic and psychological perspectives on intertemporal choice (pp. 175-200). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation; Trope, Y., Gervey, B., & Bolger, N. (2003). The role of perceived control in overcoming defensive self-evaluation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 407-419]. We propose that the need to know the potentially hurtful truths about one's own decision increases when people adopt a low-level construal, but it decreases when people adopt a high-level construal. In five experiments, we manipulated construal levels and assessed the effects on information search and the underlying psychological process.

Suggested Citation

  • Shani, Yaniv & Igou, Eric R. & Zeelenberg, Marcel, 2009. "Different ways of looking at unpleasant truths: How construal levels influence information search," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 36-44, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:110:y:2009:i:1:p:36-44
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749-5978(09)00045-4
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Uri Gneezy & John A. List & George Wu, 2006. "The Uncertainty Effect: When a Risky Prospect is Valued Less than its Worst Possible Outcome," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1283-1309.
    2. Loewenstein, George, 1987. "Anticipation and the Valuation of Delayed Consumption," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 97(387), pages 666-684, September.
    3. Zeelenberg, M., 1999. "The use of crying over spilled milk : A note on the rationality and functionality of regret," Other publications TiSEM 66ac04be-d1ee-4a0e-9e97-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shani, Yaniv & Cepicka, Marie Christine & Shashar, Nadav, 2011. "Keeping up with the Joneses: Dolphins' search knowledge for knowledge's sake," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 418-424, June.
    2. Yaniv Shani & Niels van de Ven & Marcel Zeelenberg, 2012. "Delaying information search," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 7(6), pages 750-760, November.
    3. Michael Wood & Theodore Noseworthy & Scott Colwell, 2013. "If You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees, You Might Just Cut Down the Forest: The Perils of Forced Choice on “Seemingly” Unethical Decision-Making," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(3), pages 515-527, December.
    4. Chee Wei Phang & Atreyi Kankanhalli & Bernard C. Y. Tan, 2015. "What Motivates Contributors vs. Lurkers? An Investigation of Online Feedback Forums," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 26(4), pages 773-792, December.
    5. Samuel N. Kirshner & Brent B. Moritz, 2023. "For the future and from afar: Psychological distance and inventory decision‐making," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 32(1), pages 170-188, January.
    6. Ruttan, Rachel L. & Nordgren, Loran F., 2016. "The strength to face the facts: Self-regulation defends against defensive information processing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 86-98.
    7. Polman, Evan & Ruttan, Rachel L. & Peck, Joann, 2022. "Using curiosity to incentivize the choice of “should” options," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    8. repec:cup:judgdm:v:7:y:2012:i:6:p:750-760 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul Harrison & Marta Massi & Kathryn Chalmers, 2014. "Beyond Door-to-Door: The Implications of Invited In-Home Selling," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 195-221, March.
    2. De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel & Oswald, Andrew J., 2012. "Estimating the influence of life satisfaction and positive affect on later income using sibling fixed-effects," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51523, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Mehmet Nar, 2015. "The Effects of Behavioral Economics on Tax Amnesty," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 5(2), pages 580-589.
    4. Daniel Woods & Mustafa Abdallah & Saurabh Bagchi & Shreyas Sundaram & Timothy Cason, 2022. "Network defense and behavioral biases: an experimental study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(1), pages 254-286, February.
    5. Manuel A. Gómez, 2022. "The good, the bad and the worse: current, past and future consumption externalities and equilibrium efficiency," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 137(3), pages 195-228, December.
    6. Butler, Monika & Teppa, Federica, 2005. "Should You Take a Lump-Sum or Annuitize? Results from Swiss Pension Funds," CEPR Discussion Papers 5316, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Khwaja, Ahmed & Silverman, Dan & Sloan, Frank, 2007. "Time preference, time discounting, and smoking decisions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 927-949, September.
    8. Luigi Mittone & Lucia Savadori, 2008. "Influence of time delay on choice between gambles: Savoring the emotion," CEEL Working Papers 0802, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    9. Michael T. Rauh & Giulio Seccia, 2010. "Agency and Anxiety," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 87-116, March.
      • Michael T. Rauh & Giulio Seccia, 2006. "Agency and Anxiety," Working Papers 2006-02, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    10. Giles W Story & Ivaylo Vlaev & Ben Seymour & Joel S Winston & Ara Darzi & Raymond J Dolan, 2013. "Dread and the Disvalue of Future Pain," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(11), pages 1-18, November.
    11. Kocher, Martin G. & Krawczyk, Michal & van Winden, Frans, 2014. "‘Let me dream on!’ Anticipatory emotions and preference for timing in lotteries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 29-40.
    12. Philip Streich & Jack S. Levy, 2007. "Time Horizons, Discounting, and Intertemporal Choice," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(2), pages 199-226, April.
    13. Yohanes E. Riyanto & Jianlin Zhang, 2016. "Putting a price tag on others’ perceptions of us," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(2), pages 480-499, June.
    14. Manel Baucells & Silvia Bellezza, 2017. "Temporal Profiles of Instant Utility During Anticipation, Event, and Recall," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 63(3), pages 729-748, March.
    15. Marc Oliver Rieger & Thorsten Hens & Mei Wang, 2013. "International Evidence on the Equity Premium Puzzle and Time Discounting," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 17(3-4), pages 149-163, September.
    16. Wang, Mei & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Hens, Thorsten, 2016. "How time preferences differ: Evidence from 53 countries," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 115-135.
    17. Antonelli, Fabio & Barucci, Emilio & Mancino, Maria Elvira, 2001. "Asset pricing with a forward-backward stochastic differential utility," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 151-157, August.
    18. A. Peter McGraw & Eldar Shafir & Alexander Todorov, 2010. "Valuing Money and Things: Why a $20 Item Can Be Worth More and Less Than $20," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(5), pages 816-830, May.
    19. Plamen Nikolov, 2018. "Time Delay and Investment Decisions: Evidence from An Experiment in Tanzania," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 38(2), pages 1124-1137.
    20. Paul Dolan & Robert Metcalfe, 2008. "Comparing Willingness-to-Pay and Subjective Well-Being in the Context of Non-Market Goods," CEP Discussion Papers dp0890, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:110:y:2009:i:1:p:36-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.