Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 17, 2025
06:20
Drosophila Passive Avoidance Behavior as a New Paradigm to Study Associative Aversive Learning
Published on: October 15, 2021
3.9K
Becoming an Ostrich: The Development of Information Avoidance.
Radhika Santhanagopalan1,2, Jane L Risen2, Katherine D Kinzler1
1Department of Psychology, University of Chicago.
Psychological Science
|June 30, 2025
Summary
Children, especially older ones, learn to avoid useful information to protect their feelings or for self-interest. This study explores the developmental origins of information avoidance in children.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Adults often avoid information, even when beneficial.
- Understanding the developmental trajectory of this behavior is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the emergence and development of information avoidance in children aged 5 to 10.
- To identify motivations driving information avoidance in childhood.
Main Methods:
- Three experiments involving scenarios of potential information avoidance.
- Behavioral tasks with real payoffs (moral wiggle room task).
- Qualitative analysis of children's open-ended responses.
Main Results:
- Information avoidance increased with age when motivations were present.
- Older children avoided information for self-interest, even without cost.
- Younger children also avoided information when encouraged to protect emotions.
Conclusions:
- Information avoidance is a developing behavior with origins in childhood.
- Motivations such as emotional protection and self-interest shape this avoidance.
- Early experiences influence the tendency to avoid potentially useful information.
Related Concept Videos
01:14Avoidance Learning and Learned Helplessness
1.9K
Avoidance learning and learned helplessness are critical concepts in understanding behavioral responses to negative stimuli.
Avoidance learning occurs when an organism learns that a specific behavior can prevent an unpleasant outcome. For example, a student who receives a bad grade may start studying harder to avoid future poor grades. This behavior persists even when the negative outcome is no longer present. Avoidance learning is powerful because it maintains behavior in the absence of the...
Avoidance learning occurs when an organism learns that a specific behavior can prevent an unpleasant outcome. For example, a student who receives a bad grade may start studying harder to avoid future poor grades. This behavior persists even when the negative outcome is no longer present. Avoidance learning is powerful because it maintains behavior in the absence of the...
1.9K
01:38Limits to Natural Selection
32.3K
Organisms that are well-adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. However, natural selection does not lead to perfectly adapted organisms. Several factors constrain natural selection.
32.3K
02:39Predator-Prey Interactions
19.3K
Predators consume prey for energy. Predators that acquire prey and prey that avoid predation both increase their chances of survival and reproduction (i.e., fitness). Routine predator-prey interactions elicit mutual adaptations that improve predator offenses, such as claws, teeth, and speed, as well as prey defenses, including crypsis, aposematism, and mimicry. Thus, predator-prey interactions resemble an evolutionary arms race.
19.3K
01:14Frustration and Conflict: Avoidance-Avoidance, Double-Approach Avoidance
163
Avoidance-avoidance conflict refers to a psychological situation where a person must choose between two or more unpleasant alternatives. These conflicts are particularly stressful because neither option is desirable. This dilemma is often expressed in sayings like "caught between a rock and a hard place" or "between the devil and the deep blue sea." For instance, individuals who fear dental procedures may find themselves torn between enduring a painful toothache or facing the...
163
00:48Optimal Foraging
12.5K
How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.
12.5K
02:07Conservation of Declining Populations
9.8K
Conservation of declining population focuses on ways of detecting, diagnosing, and halting a population decline. The approach uses methods to prevent populations from going extinct.
9.8K