Preference for Knowing in Advance of an Undesirable, Unavoidable Future

The global success of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests suggests that consumers prefer to know whether they will develop specific health conditions before, rather than after, their onset even when they are untreatable. This preference would contrast with the behavior of at-risk individuals, who tend to avoid genetic testing, and with the judgment of physicians, who are uncertain whether the costs of early diagnoses compensate for their benefits. We document consumers’ preference for testing to know in advance whether they will develop an untreatable and unavoidable health condition and propose that this preference is explained, at least in part, by intuitive judgments that overestimate the positive impact of advance knowledge on well-being. Two findings support this explanation. First, participants believe that testing benefits personal control and affect, but individuals who tested positive for an untreatable disease did not report greater personal control or more positive affect, than those who did not test. Second, preference for testing is influenced by reliance on more, versus less, intuitive thinking. These results indicate that consumers may be too eager to adopt technologies like DTC tests and diagnostic Artificial Intelligence because they inflate their positive well-being consequences and that companies should encourage greater deliberation before adoption.