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Beyond the mere dichotomy of active search versus avoidance of information about the self.

Case et al.'s [1] paper—“Avoiding Versus Seeking: The Relationship of Information Seeking to Avoidance, Blunting, Coping, Dissonance, and Related Concepts”—provides a comprehensive review of seminal work on the topic of information-seeking behavior that has evolved over the last few decades. The paper is also useful for researchers wanting to promptly identify areas for future investigation. 
 
Case et al. [1] primarily emphasize the need to further explore individuals' tendencies to avoid information. In response, we would like to raise the following issues for consideration. A call to focus attention on information avoidance behavior is timely but may perpetuate the view of information seeking as an all-or-nothing phenomenon, despite accumulating accounts that such behavior is more fluid and context-bound than previously thought [2]. Although the authors have chosen to focus on the notion of information avoidance, individuals are rarely found to either be information “avoiders” or active “seekers” across the board. Rather, individuals often are purposefully selective in the type, sources, and amount of information they seek [3–5]. A pregnant woman, for instance, may not want to be told of the sex of her fetus as it appears on an ultrasound but may be open to “folk” tales about how to tell whether the fetus is a girl or a boy. An individual with a diagnosis of cancer may be selective and seek much information on treatment options but not on prognosis. In addition, individuals attend differently to information depending on how it is presented (e.g., as facts, statistics, or testimonials). 
 
Studies exploring these differing information-seeking behaviors and the ways these are modulated over time are few. Case et al.'s [1] examples of individuals who avoid information are informative, but they do not attempt to address how and why different information-seeking behaviors emerge in the scope of their review. Future theoretical and empirical work could address the following: Why do individuals choose to seek certain types of information and ignore others within and across situations? What are the specific features of information that prompt individuals to seek or avoid it? How do individual differences interact with context to influence distinct processes and outcomes related to information seeking about the self?