Willful Ignorance

Wieland, Jan Willem

doi:10.1007/s10677-016-9722-9

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Mills 2007) and feminist philosophers (e.g. Frye 1983) who have focused on the way in which members of elite demographic groups benefit from socio-political structures that uphold ignorance (see Woomer 2019), as well as recent philosophical work on 'willful' ignorance (Lynch 2016;Wieland 2016a) and 'strategic' ignorance (Wieland 2016b). Important exceptions in psychology and behavioural economics include Golman et al (2015), Hertwig and Engel (2016) and Sweeny et al (2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motivated ignorance, rationality, and democratic politics

Williams

2020

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When the costs of acquiring knowledge outweigh the benefits of possessing it, ignorance is rational. In this paper I clarify and explore a related but more neglected phenomenon: cases in which ignorance is motivated by the anticipated costs of possessing knowledge, not acquiring it. The paper has four aims. First, I describe the psychological and social factors underlying this phenomenon of motivated ignorance. Second, I describe those conditions in which it is instrumentally rational. Third, I draw on evidence from the social sciences to argue that this phenomenon of rational motivated ignorance plays an important but often unappreciated role in one of the most socially harmful forms of ignorance today: voter ignorance of societal risks such as climate change. Finally, I consider how to address the high social costs associated with rational motivated ignorance.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motivated ignorance, rationality, and democratic politics

Williams

2020

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Some hold strong beliefs that others have also suffered, time has passed, this history should be forgotten, and those affected should “get over it.” According to Wieland (2017, p. 106) “willful ignorance can be seen as ignorance that is due to one's own will rather than to external barriers. You are ignorant not because it's excessively difficult to know better, but because you do not want to know better even though it's relatively easy to do so.” Willful ignorance “occurs when individuals realize at some level of consciousness that their beliefs are probably false, or when they refuse to attend to information that would establish their falsity” (Alicke, 2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co‐brand partnerships making space for the next black girl: Backlash in social justice branding

Smith

James

Griffiths

2021

Psychology and Marketing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Viral influence of consumer reviews can change the strategic intent of co‐branding relationships between minority entrepreneurial startups and established corporations. When social justice positioning is involved, the intent is often to support minority businesses. We acknowledge this strategy as social justice branding. However, such alliances can trigger vitriolic responses. This backlash is an expression of free speech, and social media provides an obscure facilitative environment. The challenges of social justice branding are complex. We examine consumer online reviews of The Honey Pot and Target Corporation partnership, to understand the implications of social justice branding in practice. Using Leximancer analysis, we find that social justice branding elicits multiple emotions that empower action. Some consumers accepted the collaboration while others resisted. Analyzing the basis of the resistance revealed some consumers expressed racist and shameful behaviors displaying disagreement. Backlash reflected willful ignorance releasing pent up prejudices and disseminating viral‐like negative information as weapons of retaliation against brands and marginalized communities. We contribute a conceptual model integrating theoretical frames of social justice, social marketing, brand activism and free speech elucidating the impact of consumer response to social justice branding. The findings and model add a lens to further explore race in the marketplace.

show abstract

“…In addition to the ignorance caused by external barriers, such as information availability and accessibility and limited educational background, there is so-called willful ignorance. Wieland (2017) defines willful ignorance as “the ignorance due to one's own will rather than external barriers.” “Willful ignorance is about avoiding inconvenient information, and it does not truly matter what attitude the agent has. Willful ignorance is compatible with awareness and unawareness of various kinds.” In this sense, ignorance cannot be conceptualized as the opposite of awareness.…”

Section: Theoretical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of ignorance and bias on information security protection motivation: a case of e-waste handling

Chen

Yuan

2022

INTR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

PurposeProtection motivation theory (PMT) explains that the intention to cope with information security risks is based on informed threat and coping appraisals. However, people cannot always make appropriate assessments due to possible ignorance and cognitive biases. This study proposes a research model that introduces four antecedent factors from ignorance and bias perspectives into the PMT model and empirically tests this model with data from a survey of electronic waste (e-waste) handling.Design/methodology/approachThe data collected from 356 Chinese samples are analyzed via structural equation modeling (SEM).FindingsThe results revealed that for threat appraisal, optimistic bias leads to a lower perception of risks. However, factual ignorance (lack of knowledge of risks) does not significantly affect the perceived threat. For coping appraisal, practical ignorance (lack of knowledge of coping with risks) leads to low response efficacy and self-efficacy and high perceptions of coping cost, but the illusion of control overestimates response efficacy and self-efficacy.Originality/valueFirst, this study addresses a new type of information security problem in e-waste handling. Second, this study extends the PMT model by exploring the roles of ignorance and bias as antecedents. Finally, the authors reinvestigate the basic constructs of PMT to identify how rational threat and coping assessments affect user intentions to cope with data security risks.

show abstract

Willful Ignorance

Cited by 22 publications

References 26 publications

Motivated ignorance, rationality, and democratic politics

Motivated ignorance, rationality, and democratic politics

Co‐brand partnerships making space for the next black girl: Backlash in social justice branding

The impact of ignorance and bias on information security protection motivation: a case of e-waste handling

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About