A Model of Defensive Information Avoidance in Information Systems Use

This paper looks at defensive information avoidance: the phenomenon that users avoid decision-relevant but incongruent information. Since only utilized information can contribute to better decision-making, the phenomenon of information avoidance is of great relevance to the information systems discipline. This paper contributes the first coherent conceptualization of information avoidance behavior by synthesizing scattered but related definitions. Building on this, it proposes a theoretical model and explains how encountering decision-relevant but incongruent information relates to different avoidance behaviors. In particular, it helps to understand yet unexplained IS use phenomena, where encountering incongruent information – paradoxically – leads to a higher information exposure but a decreased information absorption and use. The paper contributes methodologically by proposing a series of neurophysiological measures for testing the explanatory model. It derives and discusses two experimental paradigms from experimental psychology for testing the hypothesized effects