When offered the chance to learn how their actions will affect others, a large proportion of people choose to remain ignorant in order to have an excuse to act selfishly.
This is the conclusion of an international team of researchers, who say that this behavior allows people to maintain a positive self-image in the face of their actions.
University of Amsterdam psychologist Linh Vu explained: “Examples of such willful ignorance abound in everyday life.”
Case in point, he said, is “when consumers ignore information about the problematic origins of the products they buy”.
He added: “We wanted to know just how prevalent and how harmful willful ignorance is — as well as why people engage in it.”
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In their study, Vu and colleagues reviewed 22 previous research studies that included a total of 6.531 participants and were either conducted in research labs or online.
Most of the studies saw some of the subjects told the consequences of their actions, while others were permitted to choose whether the learnt the consequences or not.
One study, for example, involved participants choosing whether to receive a reward of $5 or $6.
Choosing the smaller reward meant that an anonymous peer or charity also received $5, while selecting the larger reward meant the other party was only given $1.
On average, across all the studies, the researchers found that 40 percent of people chose not to learn the consequences of their actions when given the option.
This willful ignorance was found to correlate with lower levels of altruism — with people more than 15 percent more likely to be generous to someone else when they were told the consequences of their choices than when they were allowed to remain ignorant.
The researchers have hypothesized that one reason people choose willful ignorance is that doing so allows them to maintain their self-image of being altruistic, without having to act altruistically in reality.
According to paper co-author Professor Shaul Shalvi, their findings back up this notion, with those who chose to learn the consequences of their actions being seven percent more likely to be generous than those participants who were given the information by default.
This, he said, suggests that truly altruistic people choose to learn the consequences of their actions.
Shalvi added: “The findings are fascinating as they suggest a lot of the altruistic behaviors we observe are driven by a desire to behave as others expect us to.
“While most people are willing to do the right thing when they are fully informed of the consequences of their actions, this willingness is not always because people care for others.
“A part of the reasons why people act altruistically is due to societal pressures as well as their desire to view themselves in a good light.
“Since being righteous is often costly, demanding people to give up their time, money and effort, ignorance offers an easy way out.”
The meta-analysis has some limitations, the team noted, in that all the studies included took place either in the US, western Europe, or online.
Future research, theory said, should aim to explore the manifestations of willful ignorance in more diverse settings.
Scientists should also investigate ways to help combat this behavior, they added.
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Psychological Bulletin.
