Motivated Avoidance

"Research suggests the feeling that an issue is 'above one's head' leads people to feel dependent on the government, and this dependence is managed by trusting the government more to deal with an issue, and this is managed by avoiding the issue. This is psychologically easier than taking a significant amount of time to learn about an issue, all the while confronting unpleasant information about it."

Those findings come from research that looked at issues like the economic downturn or global warming and how people deal (or don't deal) with the troublesome aspects of such facts of life. The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology uses terms like "Motivated Avoidance" or more strongly "Motivated Ignorance" to report their findings. 

The study found that when problems were presented with complex information and data, people were more likely to defer to some higher authority like government or scientists. When issues were presented in more simple terms with real world references, people were less likely to head for the avoidance behaviors. 


All of which implies that when presented with life real complexity, we tend to act like a Monty Python character.