title: Strategic Ignorance and Perceived Control
creator: Balietti, Anca
creator: Budjan, Angelika
creator: Eymess, Tillmann
creator: Soldà, Alice
subject: ddc-330
subject: 330 Economics
description: Information can trigger unpleasant emotions. As a result, individuals might be tempted to willfully ignore it. We experimentally investigate whether increasing perceived control can mitigate strategic ignorance. Participants from India were presented with a choice to receive information about the health risk associated with air pollution and later asked to recall it. We find that perceived control leads to a substantial improvement in information retention. Moreover, perceived control mostly benefits optimists, who show both a reduction in information avoidance and an increase in information retention. This latter result is confirmed with a US sample. A theoretical framework rationalizes these findings.
date: 2023-08
type: Working paper
type: info:eu-repo/semantics/workingPaper
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserverhttps://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/33733/7/Balietti_et_al._2023_dp730.pdf
identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00033733
identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-337330
identifier:   Balietti, Anca ; Budjan, Angelika ; Eymess, Tillmann ; Soldà, Alice  (2023) Strategic Ignorance and Perceived Control.  [Working paper]     
relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/33733/
rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/help/license_urhg.html
language: eng