Exposure to misleading and unreliable information reduces active information-seeking

Even when identified, misleading and unreliable information lead to poor decision-making. We investigated whether people actively compensate for this by seeking additional information. Across six experiments, participants predicted the outcomes of lotteries based on information they received from several information sources, each with an explicitly-stated level of reliability. Before making their prediction, participants were given the opportunity to bid to view an additional information source. In different conditions, sources either had only positive reliability (reliably right), or contained some random (unreliable), or below-chance reliability (reliably wrong) information. Though the same information was conveyed in each condition, exposure to unreliable and reliably wrong information reduced choice accuracy. Crucially, we also found it paradoxically reduced information-seeking. In follow-up experiments, participants rated their decision confidence. Confidence was reduced when unreliable or reliably wrong sources were present, suggesting that decreased information-seeking occurred despite lower confidence. In conclusion, even when labelled, misleading and unreliable information negatively impacts belief formation, and also paradoxically reduces curiosity.