The ostrich effect is a cognitive bias in which people ignore or avoid negative information, data, or feedback to escape emotional discomfort or anxiety.

The name comes from the myth that ostriches bury their heads in the sand when they are scared. The term was used by researchers Dan Galai and Orly Sade in a 2006 paper on financial information and investor behaviour.

Common examples include:

-Investors checking their portfolios during market booms but ignoring them during crashes.

-Avoiding unread bills, bank statements, or debt balances.

-Skipping a doctor’s appointment out of fear of a bad diagnosis.

Many times, we avoid facts that could bring real disappointment. For example, when we know an exam went badly, we may want to avoid facing the result. We may seek out information that pleases us and reject information that doesn’t.

I felt like exploring this kind of avoidance. When checking our weight or reflecting on past mistakes, we may try to avoid what we see.

Perhaps it hurts the image we hold of ourselves, the image we rely on to maintain a sense of who we are. That image gets shaken, and our instinct for self-preservation kicks in.

We have expectations about how we want things to be, and we project those expectations onto reality. It can be painful, sometimes almost unbearable, to realise that things are otherwise.

Avoidance, then, may not only be about the uncomfortable fact outside us; it may also be about protecting the version of ourselves we are unwilling to question.

This connects, though not in exactly the same way, to denialism. Climate denialism takes things a step further: it involves arguments against established evidence, not simply avoiding information. In some cases, denying or dismissing facts can help people continue acting in accordance with their desires or interests. Avoidance and denial aren’t identical, but both can protect us from information that challenges what we want to believe.

Despite many warnings from Earth itself, we want to keep going on and on with our own projects.

How do you see the relationship between avoiding uncomfortable facts and protecting our image of ourselves?

Sources:

https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/climate-change-a-crisis-of-honesty-1_09e5187