Information Avoidance and Image Concerns

A rich literature finds that individuals avoid information and suggests that avoidance is driven by image concerns. This paper provides the first direct test of whether individuals avoid information because of image concerns. We build on a classic paradigm, introducing control conditions that make minimal changes to eliminate the role of image concerns while keeping other key features of the environment unchanged. Data from 6,421 experimental subjects shows that image concerns play a role in driving information avoidance, but a role that is substantially smaller than one might have expected.