Individual differences in information-seeking

Abstract

Vast amounts of personalized information are now available to individuals. A vital research challenge is to establish how people decide what information they wish to obtain. Here, over five studies examining information-seeking in different domains we show that information-seeking is associated with three diverse motives. Specifically, we find that participants assess whether information is useful in directing action, how it will make them feel, and whether it relates to concepts they think of often. We demonstrate that participants integrate these assessments into a calculation of the value of information that explains information seeking or its avoidance. Different individuals assign different weights to these three factors when seeking information. Using a longitudinal approach, we find that the relative weights assigned to these information-seeking motives within an individual show stability over time, and are related to mental health as assessed using a battery of psychopathology questionnaires.

Fig. 1. Information-seeking motives.

a Information seeking and its avoidance is hypothesized to be driven by Instrumental Utility, Hedonic Utility and Cognitive Utility. These values reflect the predicted impact of information on action, affect and cognition, respectively. These estimates are hypothesized to be integrated into a computation of the value of information, with different weights (β_1–3) assigned to each of the three factors. The integrated value can lead to information seeking or avoidance. b Plotted are the beta coefficients from a linear mixed-effects model (N = 80 participants), showing that participants’ desire to receive information was greater when the Instrumental Utility (p = 0.001, two sided), Hedonic Utility (p = 0.0001, two sided) and Cognitive Utility (p = 0.004, two sided) of information were higher. These were estimated respectively by participants’ ratings of how useful the information would be, how they would feel to know vs not to know, and how frequently they think about the stimulus. The horizontal lines indicate median values, boxes indicate 25–75% interquartile range and whiskers indicate 1.5 × interquartile range; individual scores are shown as dots. c BIC scores reveal that the model described in b fit the data better than models including alternate combinations of the utilities and also those including participants’ confidence regarding what the information would reveal. The same was true when examining AIC scores (see Supplementary Table 8). Smaller BIC and AIC scores indicate better fit. d Plotted are the weights each individual put on each motive when seeking information. Beta coefficients of Instrumental Utility are on the x-axis, of Cognitive Utility on the y-axis and of Hedonic Utility on the z-axis. Green dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Instrumental Utility when seeking information. Red dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Hedonic Utility when seeking information. Blue dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Cognitive Utility when seeking information. The colour gradient represents how dominant the largest weight was in comparison to the other two weights. Individuals who put more than twice as much weight on their dominant utility than the other two utilities are represented in darkest colours. Those whose dominant utility was less than 1.25 times larger than the other two are represented in the lightest colours. ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01 (two sided). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Fig. 2. Information seeking related to psychopathology.

a Plotted are the weights (based on ref. ) given to each questionnaire item^– when calculating the weighted score for each participant on each of the three psychopathology dimensions identified previously (“Anxious-Depression”, “Social-Withdrawal” and “Compulsive-Behaviour and Intrusive Thought”). b Plotted on the y-axis is the average psychopathology score across the three dimensions described in a, Z-scored. On the x-axis are the weights assigned to each information-seeking motive from a linear regression predicting information seeking from Instrumental Utility (green), Hedonic Utility (red) and Cognitive Utility (blue). Dots represent individual participants. Shading represents confidence interval. Line represents the relationship between the abscissa and ordinate controlling for the effect of the other two motives as well as of age and gender. As can be observed, participants who placed a large positive weight on Cognitive Utility when seeking information reported less psychopathology symptoms (p = 0.016, two sided), while we observed no effect of Instrumental Utility (p = 0.094, two sided) or Hedonic Utility (p = 0.870, two sided). Error bars SEM. *P < 0.05 (two sided). N = 71 participants. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Fig. 3. Information-seeking motives, Experiment 2.

a, c Plotted is a boxplot depicting the beta coefficients from a linear mixed-effects model at Time 1 (N = 176 participants) (a) and Time 2 (N = 124 participants) (c), which shows that participants’ desire to receive information was greater when the Instrumental Utility (Time 1 p = 0.0001, Time 2 p = 0.0001; two sided), Hedonic Utility (Time 1 p = 0.0001, Time 2 p = 0.0001; two sided) and Cognitive Utility (Time 1 p = 0.001, Time 2 p = 0.0001; two sided) of information were higher. These were estimated, respectively, by participants’ ratings of how useful the information would be, how they would feel to know vs not know, and how frequently they think about the stimulus. For each boxplot, the horizontal lines indicate median values, boxes indicate 25–75% interquartile range and whiskers indicate 1.5 × interquartile range; individual scores are shown separately as dots. b BIC scores from Time 1 reveal that the model described in a fit the data better than models including other combinations of the utilities and those including participants’ confidence regarding what the information would reveal. d For Time 2 the model described in c fit the data second best according to the BIC model. AIC values (reported in Supplementary Table 8), however, indicate that the model described in a, d did fit the data best in comparison to control models for Time 1 and Time 2. Smaller BIC and AIC scores indicate better fit^, . e, f Plotted are the weights each individual put on each motive when seeking information at Time 1 (e) and Time 2 (f). Beta coefficients of Instrumental Utility are on the x-axis, of Cognitive Utility on the y-axis and of Hedonic Utility on the z-axis. Green dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Instrumental Utility when seeking information. Red dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Hedonic Utility when seeking information. Blue dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Cognitive Utility when seeking information. The colour gradient represents how dominant the largest weight was in comparison to the other two weights. Individuals who put more than twice as much weight on their dominant utility than the other two utilities are represented in darkest colours. Those whose dominant utility was less than 1.25 times larger than the other two are represented in the lightest colours. ***P < 0.001 (two sided). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Fig. 4. Association between information seeking and mental health is robust to replication.

Plotted on the y-axis is the average psychopathology scores across the three dimensions, Z-scored. On the x-axis are the weights assigned to each information-seeking motive from a linear regression predicting information seeking from Instrumental Utility (green), Hedonic Utility (red) and Cognitive Utility (blue), averaged across the two time points. Dots represent individual participants. Shading represents confidence interval. Line represents the relationship between the abscissa and ordinate controlling for the effect of the other two motives as well as for age and gender. As can be observed, participants who placed a large positive weight on Cognitive Utility when seeking information reported less psychopathology symptoms (p = 0.034, two sided), while we observed no effect of Instrumental Utility (p = 0.200, two sided) or Hedonic Utility (p = 0.063, two sided). Error bars SEM. *P < 0.05 (two sided). N = 124 participants. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Fig. 5. Information-seeking motives in the financial domain.

a, c Plotted is a boxplot depicting the beta coefficients from a linear mixed-effects model at Time 1 (N = 122 participants) (a) and Time 2 (N = 82 participants) (c), which shows that participants’ desire to receive information was greater when the Instrumental Utility (Time 1 p = 0.0001, Time 2 p = 0.0001; two sided), Hedonic Utility (Time 1 p = 0.0001, Time 2 p = 0.0001; two sided) and Cognitive Utility (Time 1 p = 0.0001, Time 2 p = 0.0001; two sided) of information were higher. These were estimated respectively by participants’ ratings of how useful the information would be, how they would feel to know vs not know, and how frequently they think about the stimulus. For each boxplot, the horizontal lines indicate median values, boxes indicate 25–75% interquartile range and whiskers indicate 1.5× interquartile range; individual scores are shown separately as dots. b, d BIC scores from Time 1 (b) and Time 2 (d) reveal that the model described in a, c fit the data better than models including other combinations of the utilities and those including participants’ confidence regarding what the information would reveal. The same was true when examining AIC scores (see Supplementary Table 8). Smaller BIC and AIC scores indicate better fit. e, f Plotted are the weights each individual put on each motive when seeking information at Time 1 (e) and Time 2 (f). Beta coefficients of Instrumental Utility are on the x-axis, of Cognitive Utility on the y-axis and of Hedonic Utility on the z-axis. Green dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Instrumental Utility when seeking information. Red dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Hedonic Utility when seeking information. Blue dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Cognitive Utility when seeking information. The colour gradient represents how dominant the largest weight was in comparison to the other two weights. Individuals who put more than twice as much weight on their dominant utility than the other two utilities are represented in darkest colours. Those whose dominant utility was less than 1.25 times larger than the other two are represented in the lightest colours. ***P < 0.001 (two sided). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.

Fig. 6. Information-seeking motives in the health domain.

a Plotted are the beta coefficients from a linear mixed-effects model (two sided; N = 116 participants), showing that participants’ desire to receive health related information was greater when the Instrumental Utility (p = 0.0001, two sided), Hedonic Utility (p = 0.0001, two sided) and Cognitive Utility (p = 0.0001, two sided) of information were higher. These were estimated respectively by participants’ ratings of how useful the information would be, how they would feel to know vs not to know, and how frequently they think about the stimulus. The horizontal lines indicate median values, boxes indicate 25–75% interquartile range and whiskers indicate 1.5 × interquartile range; individual scores are shown as dots. b BIC scores reveal that the model described in a fit the data better than models including alternate combinations of the utilities and also those including participants’ confidence regarding what the information would reveal. The same was true when examining AIC scores (see Supplementary Table 8). Smaller BIC and AIC scores indicate better fit. c Plotted are the weights each individual put on each motive when seeking information in the health domain. Beta coefficients of Instrumental Utility are on the x-axis, of Cognitive Utility on the y-axis and of Hedonic Utility on the z-axis. Green dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Instrumental Utility when seeking information. Red dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Hedonic Utility when seeking information. Blue dots represent participants who put the largest weight on Cognitive Utility when seeking information. The colour gradient represents how dominant the largest weight was in comparison to the other two weights. Individuals who put more than twice as much weight on their dominant utility than the other two utilities are represented in darkest colours. Those whose dominant utility was less than 1.25 times larger than the other two are represented in the lightest colours. ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01 (two sided). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.