Be More Curious!
Not happiness, but curiosity gives us gratification and satisfaction in life! If things are getting too predictable, we get bored. If we stay curious, we can discover something else or something new that positively affects your life and emotions.
Curiosity can be defined as the recognition, pursuit, and desire to explore novel, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous events. (Kashdan, et al., 2018) It is a fundamental element of our cognition, but its biological function and mechanisms remain poorly understood. It is a motivator for learning, influential in decision-making, and crucial for healthy development. (Kidd & Hayden, 2015)
A hypothesis about the function of curiosity is to motivate learning. A learner exposed to information he requires himself, which would be inaccessible via passive observation, is better in encoding and retaining the new information. Curiosity makes us seek out, explore, and immerse ourselves in situations that can give us new information and experiences. In the longer term, this will expand our knowledge, build competencies, strengthen social relationships, and increase intellectual and creative capacities. Curiosity fulfills our desire to understand that which we do not comprehend and therefore motivates learning. More information allows for better choices, more efficient searches, and more sophisticated comparisons.
I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
Einstein
Interestingly curiosity can stimulate us in two ways. Curiosity can be a feeling of interest (wanting to know for its own sake) versus curiosity as a feeling of deprivation (wanting to know because not knowing is frustrating). A function of curiosity is to reduce uncertainty; it is a drive for learning. A tendency to view the world as a fascinating place is different from being unable to sleep until we can solve an ongoing problem. It can be rewarding and gives us a good feeling when our curiosity is satisfied. We experience a lack of something wanted (information) and, therefore, unpleasant, and this unpleasantness motivates information seeking, which will alleviate it. A special form of curiosity is thrill-seeking and being adventurous; in this case, stress is not something to be reduced, rather something to amplify. This way curiosity is capable of giving us different kinds of emotions.
Perceptual (emotional) curiosity drives us to seek out novel stimuli and diminishes with continued exposure. It is the primary driver of exploratory behavior in animals, in human infants and is a possible driving force of human adults’ exploration. (Berlyne, 1966) Opposite perceptual curiosity is epistemic (related to knowledge) curiosity. It aims to obtain access to information-bearing stimulation, capable of dispelling uncertainties of the moment and acquiring knowledge. (Berlyne, 1966) This kind of curiosity is predominantly to humans, distinguishing humans’ curiosity from that of other species. Besides this, curiosity can be a specific desire for a particular piece of information, or diversive, which is a general desire for perceptual or cognitive stimulation (e.g., in the case of boredom). (Berlyne, 1966) And there is even a difference between species, monkeys exhibit more specific curiosity (solving mechanical puzzles), while rats exhibit diversive curiosity and prefer to explore unfamiliar sections of a maze.
More recent research shows that we can distinguish five different dimensions of curiosity:
1. Joyous Exploration — this is the prototype of curiosity — the recognition and desire to seek out new knowledge and information, and the subsequent joy of learning and growing.
2. Deprivation Sensitivity — this dimension has a distinct emotional tone, with anxiety and tension being more prominent than joy — pondering abstract or complex ideas, trying to solve problems, and seeking to reduce gaps in knowledge.
3. Stress Tolerance — this dimension is about the willingness to embrace the doubt, confusion, anxiety, and other forms of distress that arise from exploring new, unexpected, complex, mysterious, or obscure events.
4. Social Curiosity — wanting to know what other people are thinking and doing by observing, talking, or listening in to conversations.
5. Thrill Seeking — the willingness to take physical, social, and financial risks to acquire varied, complex, and intense experiences. (Kashdan, et al., 2018)
And Kashdan et al. described four different personalities based on this: the fascinated, problem solvers, empathizers, and avoiders. (Kashdan, et al., 2018) Our personality determines the different kinds of curiosity we manifest and how we handle and experience curiosity.
If we are curious and want to learn, we will preferentially select stimuli of an intermediate level of complexity; material that is neither too simple (already encoded into memory) nor too complex (too different from existing representations already encoded into memory). This strategy prevents us from wasting cognitive resources on too predictable or too complex events, maximizing our learning potential.
While we age, our level of curiosity diminishes. A reason why to stay curious is that it helps older adults maintain their emotional well-being. It also protects against cognitive and physical decline. (Sakaki, Yagi, & Murayama, 2018) Curiosity promotes engagement in novel situations and the accruement of resources that promote well-being. Consistency in curiosity is associated with well-being. People with more significant fluctuations in curiosity around their average level of curiosity had decreased life satisfaction and increased depression. (Sakaki, Yagi, & Murayama, 2018) Positive emotions motivate exploration, while negative emotions restrict exploration. Furthermore, more significant physical activity is associated with greater curiosity. (Lydon-Staley, Zurn, & Bassett, 2020)
Happiness is not something we will find if we look for it, but it happens to us if we are open to new experiences, if we live in the moment and if we are curious about the unknown. Curiosity strengthens our relations, improves our health, and increases our creativity and productivity. (Kashdan, et al., 2018) Be more curious!
References
Berlyne, D. (1966, July). Curiosity and Exploration. Science, 153(3731), 25–33. doi:10.1126/science.153.3731.25
Kashdan, T., Stiksma, M., Disabato, D., McKnight, P., Bekier, J., Kaji, J., & Lazarus, R. (2018). The Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale: Capturing the bandwidth of curiosity and identifying four unique subgroups of curious people. Journal of Research in Personality, 73, 130–149. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2017.11.011
Kidd, C., & Hayden, B. (2015, November 4). The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity. Neuron, 88(3), 449–460. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.010
Lydon-Staley, D., Zurn, P., & Bassett, D. (2020). Within‐person variability in curiosity during daily life and associations with well-being. Journal of Personality, 88, 625–641. doi:10.1111/jopy.12515
Sakaki, M., Yagi, A., & Murayama, K. (2018, May). Curiosity in old age: A possible key to achieving adaptive aging. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 88, 106–116. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.03.007
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