Information Seekers and Avoiders

Lauren Feiler

California Institute of Technology

Information Avoidance

Institutional: CEOs in accounting scandals, military “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy

Personal: crossing street to avoid homeless person, not checking e-mail at night

Experimental evidence (Dana, Weber, and Kuang, in press; Feiler, working paper)

Information Avoidance

Why do some people avoid information, while others actively seek it out?

Is there a range of information-seeking that has behavioral implications?

Experiment Overview

Examine effects of information avoidance and different levels of information seeking on donations to charities in a dictator game

Each round of game, give subjects chance to learn about randomly chosen charity or not

Is there a linear relationship between amount of information obtained and the size of donations?

Procedures - Stages 1 and 2

Stage 1: Assess preferences for 38 charities with questionnaire

Stage 2: 20 rounds of dictator game with charity as recipient Subject must read hidden description of charity to learn about

it 10 rounds have charity subject dislikes, other 10 have charity

subject likes Used MouselabWEB (© 2004, Martijn Willemsen and Eric

Johnson)

Procedures - Stage 2

Each description has key phrase or sentence that indicates what the charity does or beliefs it holds

Example:This international | organization serves more | than 2.25 million people.

It | aims to empower individuals | with intellectual disabilities through sports training and | competition, while changing | the attitudes

of the | community at large. Its | programs aim to develop self-confidence, improve physical | fitness and motor skills, and | allow for

greater social | involvement. It seeks a wide | range of local volunteers to

better facilitate public | attitude change.

Procedures - Stage 3

20 rounds of dictator game with same charities as stage 2 Name of charity (not description) hidden in half the

rounds In other half, name is shown

Procedures

For each subject, chose one round at random for payment from stage 2 and from stage 3

Donations were made to charities online during the session and receipts were publicly displayed

Hypotheses

Note: All refer to rounds in which charity is one the subject likes

H1. Stage 2 donation size: 0 for subjects who read nothing < subjects who read some of the blurb < subjects who read everything

Reasoning: Read nothing: do not even know what charity is Read some: just curious, or want to know if charity is worth

giving to, but do not feel compelled to read more Read all: might have already decided to donate and get warm

glow from reading about the cause, or learning about charity’s work compels them to give more

Hypotheses

H2. Stage 3 donation size: people who look for name > people who do not

H3. Stage 3 donations will be larger when the name is not hidden

H4. Subjects who donate nothing in stage 3 but saw the charity name spend less time looking at the name than those who make a donation Reasoning: subjects will pretend not to have seen name

Data

60 subjects from 6 sessions UCLA and Caltech

For analysis, consider only cells (boxes) that person spent at least 50ms on

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

None Some All

Amount Read

Ave

rag

e D

on

atio

n

H1: Subjects who read more donate more

N=80 N=260 N=259

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Read less thankey (or nothing)

Read to key Read beyond key

Ave

rag

e D

on

atio

n

Comparison based on reaching key phrase

N=166 N=88 N=345

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Did not see name Saw charity name

Ave

rage

Don

atio

nH2: Subjects who look for hidden charity name in stage 3

donate more

N=78 N=273

H3: Hidden vs. Revealed in Stage 3

No difference in donations between rounds with hidden names and ones without

May be that people who avoid looking for hidden information do so because seeing the charity does not matter

Could also be that they avoid seeing information to avoid guilt about not donating, but disutility from guilt is smaller than disutility from giving up $10

Some indication that reading complete blurbs in stage 2 was the effect of decision to donate, not the cause

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Donated 0 Donated 10 or 20

Time Per Word (milliseconds)

Times below 5th and above 95th percentile excluded

H4: “I didn’t just see that” H4: Subjects who donate nothing in stage 3 but saw

the charity name spend less time looking at the name than those who make a donation

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Donated 0 Donated 10 or 20

Time Per Word (milliseconds)

H4: “I didn’t just see that” On average, difference of about .6 seconds

Times below 5th and above 95th percentile excluded

H4: “I didn’t just see that”

When no money is donated, less time is spent per word on charity names that are liked than on those that are disliked Marginally significant effect for people who never give

anything (p=.10), and more generally (p=.06)

Might be that subjects process the names of the charities they like more quickly

Conclusion

Seeking information about a charity is associated with larger donations to the charity--the more information that is gained, the higher the donation

People who avoid information and donate nothing also fail to donate when they are confronted with information No need to gain information, or guilt?

Quicker glances made by non-donaters at charities that are liked may indicate guilt and/or self-deception

Future Research

Use eye tracker to better determine motivation for avoiding information Pupil dilation akin to that seen in deception studies could

indicate self-deception Could better measure whether subjects quickly look away from

information they do not want to see

Assess whether information seeking is cause of larger donations or result (i.e. warm glow) Could give subjects opportunity to learn more after donation

decision has been made