A new study published in Psychological Science explores how and why children begin to avoid information — a behavior that often carries into adulthood. The findings show that, as kids grow older, they increasingly choose not to know things that might make them feel bad, look unfair or challenge their self-interest.

I recently spoke with the lead author of the study, Radhika Santhanagopalan — a Ph.D. candidate in psychology and behavioral science at the University of Chicago — about what her team discovered, why it matters for both children and adults and how avoidance shapes the way we make decisions. Here’s a summary of our conversation.

What sparked your interest in studying information avoidance in children?

I was motivated by what I perceived as a developmental paradox. Adults avoid information across many consequential domains of life, including information related to their health status, financial assets and political beliefs. Yet this seemed inconsistent with what we know about children, who exhibit high levels of curiosity and a desire to learn. 

So, that led us to ask, when and why do we transition from curious information seekers as children to selective information avoiders as adults?

For readers who may not be familiar, how would you define “information avoidance”?

People can fail to obtain information for a number of reasons. We focus on situations of active information avoidance, which is when people avoid information that they are aware of, that is free and readily available and that is relevant. Information avoidance is not just indifference to learning information, but is a desire to actively avoid certain information.

Why is it important to understand the developmental origins of information avoidance?

Beyond the theoretical benefits of understanding the origins and development of information avoidance in humans, a developmental lens is also well positioned for interventions. 

Childhood offers a unique window of opportunity to intervene in real time as avoidance behaviours emerge and before they become entrenched. Early interventions can improve short-term decision-making, while also shaping long-term trajectories. That is, encouraging children to engage in information-seeking can yield small but cumulative benefits that compound across a lifetime.

In Experiment 2, you looked at “moral wiggle room.” Can you unpack what this means?

The idea of moral “wiggle” room comes from classic work by Dana, Weber and Kuang. People are motivated to see themselves as fair and good, but they also want to act in their own self-interest. The moral wiggle room allows us to achieve both: it lets us exploit uncertainty so we can benefit ourselves, while still maintaining an illusion of fairness.

For example, if Payoff A gives you more money than Payoff B, you might avoid finding out whether Payoff A is better or worse for your partner. Since it is possible that Payoff A could have been good for your partner, you’ve successfully maintained the illusion of fairness. 

You can see this in everyday life, too: consumers may avoid information about unethical products to avoid guilt, companies may avoid information about the environmental impact of their practices and voters might avoid learning about the immoral actions of political candidates who benefit their tax bracket. 

All these instances allow us to wear a protective veil of ignorance while continuing to act in our own self-interest.

Your findings suggest that avoidance increased with age. Why do you think older children leveraged this “wiggle room” to avoid useful information more so than younger children?

What we found is that younger children were very willing to learn their partner’s payoff, but then still choose the selfish option. They did not seem especially concerned with appearing fair. Older children behaved differently: they avoided learning their partner’s payoff and then chose the self-interested option. 

Why the shift? As children grow older, they become more concerned with fairness — or, at least, appearing fair. This creates a tension: they want to appear fair but also act selfishly. Moral wiggle room is the strategy that resolves this tension; by avoiding their partner’s payoff information, they can maintain the illusion of fairness since it is possible the payoff they picked also benefited their partner. 

In this way, they can make a selfish choice but disguise it as fair play.

Do these findings suggest that information avoidance is part of normal development, or a tendency that can become problematic later?

Certainly information avoidance can be both normal and adaptive — it can help children and adults protect themselves from overwhelming or threatening information. 

The challenge arises in those situations in which turning away from useful information can harm oneself or others (e.g., avoiding a medical test for fear that you will receive bad news). Moreover, as we discuss in other work, early avoidance in childhood may set the stage for broader societal challenges, such as political polarization. 

By repeatedly avoiding opposing views (almost training ourselves to turn away) we build avoidance habits that can harden into ideological rigidity over time.

What do you think adults could learn about their own avoidance from studying children?

Information avoidance seems to be a domain in which children outshine adults, making them a useful model for understanding curiosity in its purest form. By studying children, adults can see how natural curiosity drives engagement with (rather than disengagement from) uncertainty. 

Children often ask questions, explore multiple possibilities, and seek information even when it might be uncomfortable. For this reason, they serve as reminders to adults that embracing curiosity can lead to better learning and decision-making.

Are there ways to encourage children to confront uncomfortable information, rather than avoid it?

The good news is that children are naturally curious. The challenge is sustaining that curiosity rather than allowing it to be overshadowed by a desire to avoid discomfort. We can support this by normalizing uncertainty and modeling information-seeking behaviours ourselves (e.g., showing children that we are willing to seek out information, even when it’s uncomfortable). It might also help to reframe uncomfortable knowledge as socially valuable and empowering (e.g., “knowing helps us make better choices”). 

Finally, encouraging children to ask questions and reason through their decisions can help shift their focus from short-term comfort toward long-term growth.

Do you overconsume frightening information, rather than avoid it? Take this science-backed test to find out: Doomscrolling Scale