I Don't Want to Hear About it: Rational Ignorance among Duty-Oriented Consumers

Karine Nyborg

No 15/2008, Memorandum from Oslo University, Department of Economics

Abstract: Individuals with a preference for keeping moral obligations may dislike learning that voluntary contributions are socially valuable: Such informa- tion can trigger unpleasant feelings of cognitive dissonance. I show that if initial beliefs about the social value of contributions are sufficiently low, duty-oriented consumers are willing to pay to avoid information. Attitude campaigns can increase contributions from such consumers by providing them with unwanted information. Consequentialist warm glow types with low initial beliefs, however, will seek low-cost information on their own initiative; thus, campaigns will have less effects for such consumers.

Keywords: Voluntary contributions: public goods; responsibility; altruism; information campaigns; cognitive dissonance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D11 D62 D64 D89 H41 Q21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2008-07-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-pbe and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Related works:
Journal Article: I don't want to hear about it: Rational ignorance among duty-oriented consumers (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:osloec:2008_015

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