Nathan Rothschild said that he who owns information owns the world, but modern scientists are observing a strange trend.
Despite the importance of knowledge, many people deliberately choose ignorance.
At the very least, this path eliminates difficult choices and provides advantages, according to researchers at the University of Florida and the University of Amsterdam who have studied the phenomenon.
Refusal of knowledge
Refusal to know or seek information can happen in almost everyone's life, even if this process does not involve any costs.
Scientists have given a definition to what is happening: deliberate ignorance, or willful ignorance.
People vs. information
The researchers concluded that ignorance is chosen for two reasons.
Firstly, willful ignorance always keeps self-esteem at the highest level, since one can justify oneself with “ignorance”.
At the same time, outsiders form a very favorable impression of the person. They say that if he had the information, he would not have acted the way he did, or would have done what was expected of him.
Secondly, deliberate ignorance can be explained by elementary laziness or overload.
An example is the coronavirus pandemic, when people, frightened by events or overloaded with negative information, deliberately distanced themselves from the messages of epidemiologists.
Earlier we talked about the dangers of guilt .
