Sharot, T; Sunstein, CR; (2020) How people decide what they want to know. Nature Human Behaviour , 4 pp. 14-19. 10.1038/s41562-019-0793-1.

Preview

Text NHB_sharot_Sunstein_REVISED_FINAL.pdf - Accepted Version Download (961kB) | Preview

Abstract

Immense amounts of information are now accessible to people, including information that bears on their past, present and future. An important research challenge is to determine how people decide to seek or avoid information. Here we propose a framework of information-seeking that aims to integrate the diverse motives that drive information-seeking and its avoidance. Our framework rests on the idea that information can alter people’s action, affect and cognition in both positive and negative ways. The suggestion is that people assess these influences and integrate them into a calculation of the value of information that leads to information-seeking or avoidance. The theory offers a framework for characterizing and quantifying individual differences in information-seeking, which we hypothesize may also be diagnostic of mental health. We consider biases that can lead to both insufficient and excessive information-seeking. We also discuss how the framework can help government agencies to assess the welfare effects of mandatory information disclosure.

Download activity - last month

Export as XMLJSONCSV

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Archive Staff Only

View Item