Podcast: Why We Avoid Painful Information

Humans should always be willing to hear information that helps them make a decision – especially if this information regards your health or finances.

However, that isn’t always the case. As the old saying goes, ignorance is bliss. But why do we do this, and what are the consequences of shutting information out?

This episode of “Hidden Brain” explores exactly that.

Joshua Tasoff, assistant professor of economics at Claremont Graduate University, says a person should never avoid information – no matter how you feel about it – because information can never hurt a decision.

But information can be depressing, and anxiety-inducing. This causes us to turn away, and avoid said subject matter altogether. Scientists call this “information aversion,” the podcast explains, aka the “ostrich effect.”

Take the stock market for example: people tend to check their stocks more when the market is doing well, less when it’s not. The same can be applied to the news cycle. Some people (like Nancy Walters and Jason Flakes, news junkies interviewed in this podcast) who followed current events before have begun to avoid news after Donald Trump was elected.

To further examine why, Tasoff and Ananda Ganguly studied a group of students who were shown graphic photos of two different forms of the herpes virus. Blood was drawn from each student to test for these viruses. Each student could opt out of the testing process – for a fee. As many as 20 percent paid the fee.

When asked why, participants said knowing the results would cause them undue stress.

“People who avoid information rationally know that they would be better off if they fully understood the bad news,” said host Shankar Vedantam. Despite whether one should be willing to hear information or not, avoiding it doesn’t make us fools… it makes us human, he concluded.