The Blissful Ignorance Effect: Pre- versus Post-action Effects on Outcome Expectancies Arising from Precise and Vague Information

Himanshu Mishra, Baba Shiv and Dhananjay Nayakankuppam

Journal of Consumer Research, 2008, vol. 35, issue 4, 573-585

Abstract: This article examines the effects on outcome expectancies of precise versus vague information across two contexts: prior to an action taken by the consumer (pre-action) and after the action is taken (post-action). Across three experiments, we show that with vague information individuals are more optimistic of outcomes post-action compared to pre-action; this difference is attenuated with precise information. We term this inconsistency the blissful ignorance effect and show that it arises due to the interplay of two goals in decision making, the goal to arrive at a desired conclusion (directional goal) and the goal to be accurate (accuracy goal) about one's outcome expectancies. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/591104 link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:jconrs:v:35:y:2008:i:4:p:573-585

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Consumer Research is currently edited by Bernd Schmitt, June Cotte, Markus Giesler, Andrew Stephen and Stacy Wood

More articles in Journal of Consumer Research from Journal of Consumer Research Inc.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().