社会与工程心理学研究室知识库

One of the basic features of information is permanence. This feature states that the consumption of information by one consumer does not affect the availability of that information to other consumers. We present examples in two studies indicating that both laymen and experts of information exchange may be motivated to make choices that violate the permanence feature in accepting (Study 1) and offering (Study 2) information. When they possess, but have not yet consumed information, people may suffer from the appearance of wastefulness. This apparent wastefulness may provide a potential explanation for the observed violation of the permanence feature. Our findings indicate that, as the material age evolves into the information age, information-exchange behavior has not evolved significantly away from material-exchange behavior.

This research was partially supported by the Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KSCX2-YW-R-130) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 70632003, 70871110). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No additional external funding was received for this study.