Rational ignorance
Encyclopedia
Rational ignorance occurs when the cost of educating oneself on an issue exceeds the potential benefit that the knowledge would provide.

Ignorance
Ignorance
Ignorance is a state of being uninformed . The word ignorant is an adjective describing a person in the state of being unaware and is often used as an insult...

 about an issue is said to be "rational" when the cost of educating oneself about the issue sufficiently to make an informed decision can outweigh any potential benefit one could reasonably expect to gain from that decision, and so it would be irrational to waste time doing so. This has consequences for the quality of decisions made by large numbers of people, such as general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

s, where the probability
Probability
Probability is ordinarily used to describe an attitude of mind towards some proposition of whose truth we arenot certain. The proposition of interest is usually of the form "Will a specific event occur?" The attitude of mind is of the form "How certain are we that the event will occur?" The...

 of any one vote changing the outcome is very small.

The term is most often found in economics, particularly public choice theory
Public choice theory
In economics, public choice theory is the use of modern economic tools to study problems that traditionally are in the province of political science...

, but also used in other disciplines which study rationality
Rationality
In philosophy, rationality is the exercise of reason. It is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately. It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action...

 and choice, including philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 (epistemology) and game theory
Game theory
Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances, such as in games, where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others...

.

The term was coined by Anthony Downs
Anthony Downs
Anthony Downs is a scholar in public policy and public administration, and since 1977 is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C..-Education:...

, An Economic Theory of Democracy
An Economic Theory of Democracy
An Economic Theory of Democracy is a political science treatise written by Anthony Downs, published in 1957. The book set forth a model with precise conditions under which economic theory could be applied to non-market political decision-making. It also suggested areas of empirical research that...

 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957)

Bryan Caplan
Bryan Caplan
Bryan Caplan is an American economist, a Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center, adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute, and blogger for Econlog. He is best known for his work in public choice theory and for his libertarian ideology.-Personal...

 has theorized that voters' anomalous beliefs cannot be attributed solely to rational ignorance; he states that irrational systemic bias
Systemic bias
Systemic bias is the inherent tendency of a process to favor particular outcomes. The term is a neologism that generally refers to human systems; the analogous problem in non-human systems is often called systematic bias, and leads to systematic error in measurements or estimates.-Bias in...

 is also at work. Although some scholars have argued that citizens use "shortcuts" to gain enough knowledge to participate in self-government, the evidence does not support the "shortcut" argument.

Example

Consider an employer attempting to choose between two candidates offering to complete a task at the cost of $10 / hour. The length of time needed to complete the task may be longer or shorter depending on the skill of the person performing the task, so it is in the employer's best interests to find the fastest worker possible. Assume that the cost of another day of interviewing the candidates is $100. If the employer had deduced from the interviews so far that both candidates would complete the task in somewhere between 195 and 205 hours, it would be in the employer's best interests to choose one or the other by some easily-applied metric (for example, flipping a coin) rather than spend the $100 on determining the better candidate, saving at most $100 in labor.

In many cases, the decision may be made on the basis of heuristic
Heuristic
Heuristic refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution, where an exhaustive search is impractical...

; a simple decision model which may not be completely accurate. For example, in deciding which brand of prepared food is most nutritious, a shopper might simply choose the one with (for example) the lowest amount of sugar, rather than conducting a research study of all the positive and negative factors in nutrition.

Applications

Marketers can take advantage of rational ignorance by increasing the complexity of a decision. If the difference in value between a quality product and a poor product is less than the cost to perform the research necessary to differentiate between them, then it is more rational for a consumer to just take his chances on whichever of the two is more convenient and available. Thus, it is in the interest of the producer of a lower value product to proliferate features, options, and package combinations until the average shopper finds it too much trouble to make an informed decision.

This also works for politics. By increasing the number of issues that a person needs to consider in order to make a rational decision between candidates, they can level the playing field by encouraging single-issue voting or party-line voting.

Another, more nuanced, political application involves a voter's identification with a political party, much like the adoption of a favorite movie critic. Based on prior experience a reasonably responsible voter will find politicians or a political party that will draw conclusions similar to their own conclusions when the voter had the time to do the analysis.

Criticisms

Much of the empirical support for the idea of rational ignorance was drawn from studies of voter apathy
Apathy
Apathy is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation and passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical or physical life.They may lack a sense of purpose or meaning in...

, which reached particularly strong conclusions in the 1950s. However, apathy appeared to decline sharply in the 1960s as concern about issues such as the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 mounted , and political polarization
Polarization (politics)
In politics, polarization is the process by which the public opinion divides and goes to the extremes. It can also refer to when the extreme factions of a political party gain dominance in a party. In either case moderate voices often lose power and influence as a consequence.-Definitions of...

 increased. This suggests that voters' interest in political information increases with the importance of political choices.

Additionally, rational ignorance is scrutinized for its broadening effect on the decisions that individuals make in different matters. The investment of time and energy on the specified subject has ramifications on other decision areas. Individuals sometimes forget to take this into account when unconsciously assessing the investment cost versus payout. The external benefits are therefore not adequately taken into account.

See also

  • Bounded rationality
    Bounded rationality
    Bounded rationality is the idea that in decision making, rationality of individuals is limited by the information they have, the cognitive limitations of their minds, and the finite amount of time they have to make a decision...

  • Categorical imperative
    Categorical imperative
    The Categorical Imperative is the central philosophical concept in the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, as well as modern deontological ethics...

  • Satisficing
    Satisficing
    Satisficing, a portmanteau "combining satisfy with suffice", is a decision-making strategy that attempts to meet criteria for adequacy, rather than to identify an optimal solution...


External links

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