Want to Know When You're Going to Die? Most Don't
When I was being treated for cancer, I didn't look too far ahead into the future. Turns out, no one does. A new study says that, given the choice, nobody really wants to know when they're going to die , newswise.com reports. Whether it's good or bad, people prefer not to know what lies ahead for them, even if they think those events could make them happy, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.. “In our study, we’ve found that people would rather decline the power to know the future, in an effort to forgo the suffering that knowing the future may cause, avoid regret and also maintain the enjoyment of suspense that pleasurable events provide," says Gerd Gigerenzer, PhD, of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. The length of time until an event would occur also played a role: Deliberate ignorance was more likely the nearer the event. For example, older adults were less likely than younger adults to want to kno...