UC Merced

Despite the potential negative implications of avoiding information about one’s health, research finds that people sometimes avoid this information. Current theorizing on avoidance implies that information is avoided to the extent that it is unwanted, however, no research has measured this construct of unwantedness nor examined its potential role in avoidance behavior. Further, although past work examines links between individual factors and avoidance, it generally fails to consider how these factors may work in tandem to predict avoidance. The present work proposes and defines a novel construct which can summarize multiple factors that contribute to health information avoidance: unwantedness of information, or the extent to which one does not desire information.In Study 1, participants completed a disease risk calculator, faced a decision to learn or forego their disease-risk feedback, and completed three measures of unwantedness. The results revealed that a brief 2-item measure of unwantedness accounted for as much variance in avoidance as more extended measures. Further, unwantedness of disease-risk feedback was associated with a greater likelihood of avoiding disease-risk feedback. In Study 2, participants completed a disease risk calculator, the 2-item measure of unwantedness, and then faced a decision to learn or forego their disease-risk feedback. The results revealed that the 2-item measure of unwantedness demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity. Moreover, disutility of learning information and lack of resources for learning information were both associated with greater unwantedness of information which, in turn, was associated with a greater likelihood of information avoidance. In Study 3, participants were assigned to a behavioral obligation manipulation, a manipulation emphasizing lack of treatment, or a control condition before completing a risk calculator for TAA deficiency (a fictitious disease). Next, they completed the 2-item measure of unwantedness and faced a decision to learn or forego their disease-risk feedback. The results suggested that the behavioral obligation manipulation increased unwantedness of disease-risk feedback and, in turn, avoidance. Collectively, these findings support the role of unwantedness of information in decisions to avoid health information and suggest that unwantedness is a promising target for future research aimed at reducing avoidance of health information.