IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/joepsy/v90y2022ics016748702200037x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Deliberate ignorance in moral dilemmas: Protecting judgment from conflicting information

Author

Listed:
  • Mata, André
  • Vaz, André
  • Mendonça, Bernardo

Abstract

People often protect themselves from information that might make their judgments and decisions look questionable; information that they could easily access, but that they choose not to see. This is a deliberate form of ignorance. In two studies, we investigated deliberate ignorance in moral judgment. Participants made judgments about trolley-type sacrificial dilemmas, pertaining to whether it is acceptable to sacrifice one person in order to save more. They were then asked whether they would like to receive additional information about the dilemma, which had the potential to make their previous judgment less defensible (e.g., information about the identity of the sacrificed person, or about the number of people who could benefit from the sacrifice). Finally, regardless of their preference to receive the information or ignore it, they were shown the additional information, and they were again asked to make a judgment. As predicted, some participants chose not to see the missing information. Critically, though, those who chose to ignore the information were just as likely to (significantly) revise their judgments when they saw the new information as those who indicated that they wanted to receive the information. Thus, these participants were deliberately ignorant of information that proved to be consequential.

Suggested Citation

  • Mata, André & Vaz, André & Mendonça, Bernardo, 2022. "Deliberate ignorance in moral dilemmas: Protecting judgment from conflicting information," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:90:y:2022:i:c:s016748702200037x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2022.102523
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016748702200037X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.joep.2022.102523?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Thunström, Linda & Cherry, Todd L. & McEvoy, David M. & Shogren, Jason F., 2016. "Endogenous context in a dictator game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 117-120.
    2. Linda Thunström & Klaas van ’t Veld & Jason F. Shogren & Jonas Nordström, 2014. "On strategic ignorance of environmental harm and social norms," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 124(2), pages 195-214.
    3. Emanuel, Amber S. & Kiviniemi, Marc T. & Howell, Jennifer L. & Hay, Jennifer L. & Waters, Erika A. & Orom, Heather & Shepperd, James A., 2015. "Avoiding cancer risk information," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 113-120.
    4. Kandul, Serhiy & Lanz, Bruno, 2021. "Public good provision, in-group cooperation and out-group descriptive norms: A lab experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    5. Valerio Capraro & Jonathan Sippel & Bonan Zhao & Levin Hornischer & Morgan Savary & Zoi Terzopoulou & Pierre Faucher & Simone F Griffioen, 2018. "People making deontological judgments in the Trapdoor dilemma are perceived to be more prosocial in economic games than they actually are," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-16, October.
    6. Linda Thunström & Jonas Nordström & Jason F. Shogren & Mariah Ehmke & Klaas Veld, 2016. "Strategic self-ignorance," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 117-136, April.
    7. repec:cup:judgdm:v:4:y:2009:i:6:p:479-491 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Gold, Natalie & Pulford, Briony D. & Colman, Andrew M., 2015. "Do as I Say, Don’t Do as I Do: Differences in moral judgments do not translate into differences in decisions in real-life trolley problems," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 50-61.
    9. Jenni, Karen E & Loewenstein, George, 1997. "Explaining the "Identifiable Victim Effect."," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 235-257, May-June.
    10. Momsen, Katharina & Ohndorf, Markus, 2022. "Information avoidance, selective exposure, and fake (?) news: Theory and experimental evidence on green consumption," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    11. repec:cup:judgdm:v:9:y:2014:i:1:p:65-76 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Bachmann, Kremena, 2024. "Do you have a choice?: Implications for belief updating and the disposition effect," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).

    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. Capitán, Tabaré & Thunstrom, Linda & van 't Veld, Klaas & Nordström, Jonas & Shogren, Jason F., 2024. "Show me the labels: Using pre-nudges to reduce calorie information avoidance," SocArXiv vy6af, Center for Open Science.
    2. Edenbrandt, Anna Kristina & Lagerkvist, Carl Johan & Nordström, Jonas, 2021. "Interested, indifferent or active information avoiders of carbon labels: Cognitive dissonance and ascription of responsibility as motivating factors," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    3. Nordström, Jonas & Thunström, Linda & Van ’T Veld, Klaas & Shogren, Jason F. & Ehmke, Mariah, 2023. "Strategic ignorance of health risk: its causes and policy consequences," Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 83-114, January.
    4. Kim, Joonkyung & Zhao, Min & Soman, Dilip, 2023. "Converging vs diverging: The effect of visual representation of goal structure on financial decisions," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 362-377.
    5. Heyes, Anthony & Lyon, Thomas P. & Martin, Steve, 2018. "Salience games: Private politics when public attention is limited," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 396-410.
    6. Lackner, Mario & Sonnabend, Hendrik, 2021. "Coping with advantageous inequity—Field evidence from professional penalty kicking," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    7. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, "undated". "Pro-Social Behavior, Reciprocity or Both?," IEW - Working Papers 107, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    8. Grolleau, Gilles & Ibanez, Lisette & Mzoughi, Naoufel, 2020. "Moral judgment of environmental harm caused by a single versus multiple wrongdoers: A survey experiment," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    9. Lisa Bruttel & Werner Güth & Ralph Hertwig & Andreas Orland, 2020. "Do people harness deliberate ignorance to avoid envy and its detrimental effects?," CEPA Discussion Papers 17, Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
    10. Sergio Barbosa & William Jiménez-Leal, 2017. "It’s not right but it’s permitted: Wording effects in moral judgement," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 12(3), pages 308-313, May.
    11. Chuan, Amanda & Samek, Anya Savikhin, 2014. "“Feel the Warmth” glow: A field experiment on manipulating the act of giving," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 198-211.
    12. Dwight R. Lee & J. R. Clark, 2018. "Can behavioral economists improve economic rationality?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 23-40, January.
    13. Ben Greiner & Werner Güth & Ro’i Zultan, 2012. "Social communication and discrimination: a video experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 15(3), pages 398-417, September.
    14. Broberg, Thomas & Kažukauskas, Andrius, 2021. "Information policies and biased cost perceptions - The case of Swedish residential energy consumption," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    15. Daniele Pennesi, 2020. "Identity and information acquisition," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 610, Collegio Carlo Alberto, revised 2021.
    16. Ehsan Taheri & Chen Wang, 2018. "Eliciting Public Risk Preferences in Emergency Situations," Decision Analysis, INFORMS, vol. 15(4), pages 223-241, December.
    17. repec:cup:judgdm:v:3:y:2008:i:8:p:595-606 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Heizler, Odelia & Israeli, Osnat, 2021. "The identifiable victim effect and public opinion toward immigration; a natural experiment study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    19. Kevin Bauer & Andrej Gill, 2024. "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Algorithmic Assessments, Transparency, and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 35(1), pages 226-248, March.
    20. repec:cup:judgdm:v:8:y:2013:i:4:p:397-406 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Tilman Br�ck & Manuel Schubert, 2014. "The Perception of Lethal Risks - Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment," HiCN Working Papers 188, Households in Conflict Network.
    22. Lenka Fiala & Charles N. Noussair, 2017. "Charitable Giving, Emotions, And The Default Effect," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(4), pages 1792-1812, October.

    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:joepsy:v:90:y:2022:i:c:s016748702200037x. 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/joep .

    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.