The tendency to avoid or ignore negative information or situations by 'burying one's head in the sand,' particularly in contexts like finance or health.
Prevents early problem detection, worsens financial and health outcomes, and explains why people avoid monitoring important metrics.
Named after the myth that ostriches bury their heads in sand when threatened (they don't), but humans actually do this psychological equivalent regularly.
"Evolution gave you pattern recognition. Marketing gave you patterns to recognize. Guess who's winning?"