Nov 6, 2023 11:28 PM
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/people-c...ignorance/
INTRO: Do you have an uncle who believes vaccines cause autism but refuses to study the reams of research showing them to be safe? What about a friend who avoids information about factory animal farming so they can eat cheap meat guilt-free? Or how about that CEO who claims their business is ethically minded, yet doesn’t investigate its supply chain for exploitation of the environment or the impoverished?
Each is an example of what psychologists call willful ignorance — the intentional act of avoiding information that reveals the negative consequences of one’s actions. Not to judge: We all have a place in our lives where we look the other way and pretend everything is fine. It may be personal, political, or professional in nature, but just below the conscious surface, we know our actions don’t align with our stated values.
“Examples [of] willful ignorance abound in everyday life,” Linh Vu, a doctoral candidate at the University of Amsterdam, said. “We wanted to know just how prevalent and how harmful willful ignorance is, as well as why people engage in it.”
To find out, Vu and a team of researchers performed the first meta-analysis on the current empirical evidence of willful ignorance, and it was published in the Psychological Bulletin, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Psychological Association. They compared the results of 22 studies with a total of more than 6,000 participants. Here’s what they found... (MORE - details)
INTRO: Do you have an uncle who believes vaccines cause autism but refuses to study the reams of research showing them to be safe? What about a friend who avoids information about factory animal farming so they can eat cheap meat guilt-free? Or how about that CEO who claims their business is ethically minded, yet doesn’t investigate its supply chain for exploitation of the environment or the impoverished?
Each is an example of what psychologists call willful ignorance — the intentional act of avoiding information that reveals the negative consequences of one’s actions. Not to judge: We all have a place in our lives where we look the other way and pretend everything is fine. It may be personal, political, or professional in nature, but just below the conscious surface, we know our actions don’t align with our stated values.
“Examples [of] willful ignorance abound in everyday life,” Linh Vu, a doctoral candidate at the University of Amsterdam, said. “We wanted to know just how prevalent and how harmful willful ignorance is, as well as why people engage in it.”
To find out, Vu and a team of researchers performed the first meta-analysis on the current empirical evidence of willful ignorance, and it was published in the Psychological Bulletin, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Psychological Association. They compared the results of 22 studies with a total of more than 6,000 participants. Here’s what they found... (MORE - details)