Sometimes, individuals strategically avoid information to hold particular beliefs or to take certain actions—such as behaving selfishly—with lower image costs; more important are a desire to avoid interpersonal tradeoffs or bad news, & laziness

Information Avoidance and Image Concerns. Christine L. Exley & Judd B. Kessler. NBER Working Paper 28376, January 2021. DOI 10.3386/w28376. https://www.nber.org/papers/w28376

Abstract: A rich literature finds that individuals avoid information, even information that is instrumental to their choices. A common hypothesis posits that individuals strategically avoid information to hold particular beliefs or to take certain actions—such as behaving selfishly—with lower image costs. Building off of the classic “moral wiggle room” design, this paper provides the first direct test of whether individuals avoid information because of image concerns. We analyze data from 4,626 experimental subjects. We find that image concerns play a role in driving information avoidance, but a role that is substantially smaller than the common approach in the literature would suggest. The large majority (66% to 81%) of information avoidance remains when image concerns cannot drive avoidance. We find evidence for other reasons why individuals avoid information, such as a desire to avoid interpersonal tradeoffs, a desire to avoid bad news, laziness, inattention, and confusion.