The Moral Wiggle Room: When Avoiding Information is Strategically Optimal

A rational economic agent will use all the relevant information when she makes her decisions. Consequently, we should never observe situations in which a rational individual willingly neglect to consider and to use freely available information able to improve her decisions. For that, it is particularly intriguing to notice that are casual observation as well as laboratory and field experimental evidence showing that information avoidance is relatively common. More interestingly, this evidence suggests that information avoidance can also take its stronger form: when information avoidance is the result of active behaviour. This paper critically analyses this literature discussing its main results and the point that deserves further research. The moral wiggle room effect is one element that can explain why current social consumption is significantly lower with respect to the level suggested by the consumer surveys.