Recently, I’ve found myself assiduously avoiding stories about COVID in the news. Like everyone else, I’d hoped things would be far better than they are this fall, and some days I just don’t want to know exactly how safe (or unsafe) life is for a vaccinated Philadelphian. This type of information avoidance isn’t all that peculiar — it’s actually a well-known tendency of our species (dubbed “the ostrich effect”). This month, I’ll share an interview that explores why people avoid useful but potentially disheartening information.
But first, I have some exciting events, listens, and reads to recommend as well as a bit of book news to share.
A New Wharton Virtual Event Series Featuring Behavioral Science Authors
There are so many great new books about behavioral science that Angela Duckworth and I have decided to co-host a virtual event series at Wharton featuring Q&As with some of our favorite academic authors. The events will be open and free to anyone, and they are all scheduled for Fridays from 12 – 12:45 pm. Learn more and register here [https://upenn.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8_tJzBjtSpKR9hE8TKFqnQ].
Recommended Listens and Reads
Big Goals, Little Steps: A new season of Choiceology launched in August. Our first episode featured Olympian Shannon Miller explaining her recipe for success alongside UCLA Professor Hal Hershfield, who reveals why Miller’s strategy of breaking big goals into bite-sized sub-goals is so important.
You, But Better: This new episode of NPR's Hidden Brain podcast covers my research on behavior change and offers a preview of my book for anyone who hasn’t picked up a copy.
Several recently released books by behavioral scientists that I particularly recommend include:
You Have More Influence than You Think from psychologist Vanessa Bohns, which examines how we can all become more persuasive.
The Power of Us from psychologists Jay Van Bavel and Dominic Packer, which unpacks the science of identity.
Nudge:The Final Edition from economist Richard Thaler and legal scholar Cass Sunstein, which offers an update on the modern classic that first introduced choice architecture and nudging to a mass audience.
Summer Book News
I was over the moon when The Next Big Idea Club’s curators Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Pink, Susan Cain and Adam Grant announced How to Change as one of their two favorite new books of the season. Thousands of readers received copies of How to Change in their mailboxes in late August as a result (alongside The Extended Mind from Annie Murphy Paul, which I also highly recommend). Keep an eye out for a live Next Big Idea Club event with Dan Pink in October and more ...
Q&A: The Ostrich Effect
In this Q&A from Choiceology with Northwestern University Professor Emily Ho, we talk about her research on information avoidance and the aptly named ostrich effect.
Me: First, can you explain what the ostrich effect is?
Emily: The ostrich effect comes from the old legend of an ostrich burying its head in the sand when it senses danger. Rather than running away, ostriches stick their heads in the sand and go, “Ah, crisis averted.” For humans, it’s the phenomenon of avoiding information when people expect the outcome to be bad. Like, if I think my favorite sports team has lost the game, I’m not going to check the final score.
Me: What evidence suggests that this is a real problem?
Emily: There’s work in the field of behavioral finance showing that investors avoid looking at their financial portfolios when the stock market is down. But when the stock market is up, people log into their accounts a lot more. What’s really cool is that this behavior persists over the weekend when the markets aren’t trading. When the stock markets end on a high note, people are logging in just to enjoy reviewing their earnings, even though they really can’t do anything about it.
There are also studies showing that people who are at risk of having particularly undesirable diseases—from STDs to Huntington’s disease (which is a fatal neurodegenerative disease)—are less likely to get tested. I think in the Huntington’s disease scenario, only 7 percent of people who have that gene get tested. People are just flat out avoiding the fact that they may be very ill, thinking, “Well, if I don’t get tested, then it’s like I don’t have it.”
Me: You’re saying that people who have really extreme symptoms suggesting they should go to the doctor and get tests aren’t doing it?
Emily: Exactly.
Me: Fascinating. What is it that drives us to avoid information in certain contexts even though we’re eager to seek out information in other settings?
Emily: That’s a really interesting question. I’ll focus on two possible reasons. One is that some people are more (or less) sensitive in certain areas of their life. For example, if I got a raise last year and my bank account’s doing pretty well, I might be a lot more inclined to check my finances. But if I suspect I’m unhealthy, I might avoid that information. It’s very context dependent.
Another possibility is that people don’t seek information because they think they can’t do anything about it. A lot of people in our studies said, “I don’t want to know if I have a certain disease or not because I can’t do anything about this disease” or “I don’t want to know what my co-worker down the hall is making in his portfolio because it doesn’t help me make back that money.”
But there is something you can do about that information. You can use it to update your beliefs and to change course.
Me: Do you have any advice about how people can prevent themselves from succumbing to the ostrich effect?
Emily: Think about why exactly you’re avoiding the information. Is it really that you’re afraid of your own emotions? Is it because you don’t think you can do anything about it? Thinking of the counterfactual can help you override the initial impulse of thinking “that would make me feel too bad.”
Information avoidance is often a knee jerk reaction. And when you revisit it later, you think, “Oh, but think of all the other implications this could bring up once I find out the truth.”
To learn more about information avoidance and the ostrich effect, listen to the episode of Choiceology where we dig into the topic.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
That’s all for this month’s newsletter. See you in October!
Katy Milkman, PhD
Professor at Wharton, Host of Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of How to Change.