I didn’t know either: how beliefs about norms shape strategic ignorance

Hua, Tony (2025): I didn’t know either: how beliefs about norms shape strategic ignorance.

Abstract

People often avoid information as a way to justify selfish behavior. However, such behavior often unfolds in social contexts, where expectations about others’ behavior may shape moral decision-making. This study investigates how beliefs about descriptive norms influence strategic ignorance in a modified moral wiggle-room game. Participants first predicted how often others acquired information, then received randomly assigned feedback indicating high or low rates of ignorance before making their own decision as the dictator. Individuals were more likely to seek information when told that most others typically did so, and more likely to avoid information when told that ignorance was common. Norm-conforming behavior differed between ignorance expectants--those who expected ignorance and reveal expectants--those who expected information acquisition. Ignorance expectants adjusted only when norm cues strongly contradicted their prior beliefs, whereas reveal expectants exhibited modest but consistent responsiveness across norm environments. There is no evidence of ex-ante self-serving belief distortion, though limited behavioral change constrained opportunities to test for ex-post justification. These findings suggest that strategic ignorance responds to descriptive norms, but not through motivated belief distortion.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: information avoidance; moral wiggle-room; social norms; belief formation; social norms; social appropriateness; experiment
• Subjects: C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C7 - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory > C72 - Noncooperative Games; C - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods > C9 - Design of Experiments > C91 - Laboratory, Individual Behavior; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D83 - Search ; Learning ; Information and Knowledge ; Communication ; Belief ; Unawareness

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