Attitude and attention in decision-making : testing the Ostrich-effect with an indulgement substance

Abstract

Individual motivation, awareness and prevention of bad health outcomes play a key role when discussing public spending on health care. Most of these discussions are often related to design good policies and efficient resource allocation, that would incentivize individuals to act to promote health so that society’s spending on health care could be minimized in the future. Further, other questions arise when considering changing responsibilities from the public sector to individuals. If people are encouraged to monitor their own health and actions, would it provide more savings in the future and how does individual decision-making function when there is a health outcome as a concern? Do individuals make optimal decisions when consuming indulgent substances such as candies, sodas, alcohol and other consumer goods that drive hedonism? Are our decisions based on rationality and a true desire for valid information or are our decisions driven by our beliefs which might be biased because of our preceding action?

This study tries to address the importance of beliefs in decision-making process by finding links between motivated attention and attitude toward information acquisition. The study uses quantitative methods for testing and analysing the data which is obtained from the laboratory experiment. As the indulgence substance used in the experiment was chocolate, therefore all the information provided for participants (articles) in the experiment were related to chocolate and its health effects.

The statistical analysis of the experiment data shows that the attitude and the threshold were not significant variables in estimating the impact on information acquisition. Although, both were estimated of having slightly negative impact on the information acquisition. This could mean that people do not want to attain the information that might supply a surprise for them. People also seem to be stimulated to attain information by negative information or even more stimulated by positive information of chocolate but less stimulated by neutral information.

In terms of providing information about health issues, we should think about the attention in a way that the information is designed to be the most “indulging” way for people to desire for more knowledge. If we supply the information that does not raise emotions, then our goal is not met if we want to increase the motivated attention.