Why do we avoid bad news and put off facing problems?

Podcast I shouldn’t have done that – Program 4

If I give you a choice between good news and bad news, which one will you choose? The answer seems obvious. But are they two bad news? Like every Monday, we find ourselves in “I shouldn’t have done that”, a space where we open the kitchen of our decisions to know the reasons behind each of them, learn which ones limit us and what to do to improve them.

This time we are going to talk about a behavior that is common to everyone and that, in short, can become evident when the electricity bill arrives and it takes us days to open it to find out how much we spent. This is a bias that makes us shy away from bad news, even when that decision ends up making the situation worse.

Today we are going to talk about the “ostrich effect” or aversion to information. A bias that leads us to avoid any type of information that we may consider bad for us. And, as in almost all the biases that we see in this podcast, I would tell you that it is precisely the opposite of what common sense establishes as rational. The logical thing would be that the sooner we find out about what is bad and the more information we have, the easier it is to decide and intervene, but we prefer to avoid this news.

The ostrich effect, a psychological phenomenon that leads us to ignore bad news, can have a significant impact on our financial and personal lives, affecting decisions from checking bills to taking care of our health. (Illustrative Image Infobae)

The name of this bias comes from the myth that ostriches, at the slightest sign of danger, stick their heads into the sand. The origin of this concept arose in the early 2000s, when researchers Dan Galai and Orly Sade used it to describe those who avoid knowing the risk of certain decisions.

How did they identify it? They analyzed the behavior of financial advisors, who checked the evolution of their portfolios when stocks were rising and there was more performance. However, when yields began to fall and values ​​fell, they did so less and less. Precisely, when they most needed to be alert to make decisions, they preferred not to.

It also affects us in our daily lives. In particular, in topics that can have serious consequences, such as reviewing the results of a medical study or addressing the first symptoms of an illness.

Exploring human behavior through the ostrich effect, this podcast delves into how denial of reality can make already complicated situations worse, a valuable perspective for the modern listener. (Reuters)

Why do we do this then? When we go to the cinema to see a horror movie, from the moment we buy the ticket we know that there is going to be death and blood, but still when the moment of the ax arrives we don’t want to look. Something similar happens with the ostrich effect: we sense that something is coming that we don’t like and we try to avoid it.

There are several biases that intertwine and explain this attitude of burying one’s head so as not to receive information that we consider bad.

First of all, human beings are optimists by nature, we believe that things will always be fine. This is the optimism bias. The second is cognitive dissonance, which is that receiving information that does not agree with what we believed causes us physical, mental and emotional discomfort. And furthermore, the ostrich effect feeds on our ego.

By deliberately ignoring or procrastinating about learning information that we consider negative, we can fall into a trap that only deepens the problem (Getty)

The ego is key to not listening to anything we don’t like, mainly from ourselves. But there is more. The ostrich effect also feeds on our aversion to loss, which we talked about in the first episode, and refers to the fact that we try to avoid a material or emotional loss. And, due to the effect of procrastination, of kicking everything and waiting until tomorrow, an explosive combo is generated.

In 2007, a study in the Banke district (Nepal), one of the most developed regions of the country on the border with India, invited more than 300 people who had symptoms of tuberculosis to participate in an experiment that sought to answer a question : How long does it take for a patient with symptoms to seek confirmation of the disease and start treatment?

The ostrich effect in our lives: from not checking bills to more serious issues, such as postponing care and medical check-ups. (Illustrative Image Infobae)

Los results They were categorical: those who did not smoke took an average of thirty days; while smokers took twice as long. On average it took sixty days to go to the doctor to start treatment. The reason? The diagnosis of tuberculosis was bad for everyone, but it was worse for smokers, who were going to have to change their habits.

So why is it important to know this bias? First, if we don’t correct it, we lose the opportunity to improve. Also to implement a corrective plan for our expenses. And finally, if we do not correct this bias, it is very difficult to change habits to help us feel better about ourselves.

I’ll add one more piece of information to finish pulverizing the myth of the ostrich: it does not bury its head in the sand, it simply bends it cleverly to go unnoticed in the context.

Although we know that a horror movie will include gore and death scenes, the moment the ax appears, we prefer to look away. (Getty Images)

To close, three tips so you don’t hide your head:

*Emmanuel Ferrario is a university professor of behavioral economics, author of the book “Coordenadas para anti-systems” and legislator of the City of Buenos Aires.