Cultivating an understanding of curiosity as a seed for creativity

Gross, Madeleine; Zedelius, Claire M.; Schooler, Jonathan W.

doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.07.015

Cited by 64 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Epistemic curiosity is generally thought to be an important motivator for learning (Berliner, 2020;Berlyne, 1966Berlyne, , 1978Gross et al, 2020;Gruber et al, 2014;Hardy et al, 2017;Kang et al, 2009;Kashdan & Fincham, 2002;Kaufman, 2017;Litman, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Epistemic curiosity, or the desire for knowledge (Berlyne, 1954;Litman & Spielberger, 2003;Loewenstein, 1994), is widely seen as an important virtue (Baehr, 2011;, and credited as a driving force behind learning and innovation (e.g., Berliner, 2020;Berlyne, 1966Berlyne, , 1978Gross, Zedelius, & Schooler, 2020;Gruber, Gelman, & Ranganath, 2014;Hardy, Ness, & Mecca, 2017;Kang et al, 2009;Kashdan & Fincham, 2002;Kaufman, 2017;Litman, 2005). Thus far, the literature has primarily focused on the intellectually beneficial aspects of curiosity.…”

Section: Conflicts Of Interest/competing Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, they engage in specific, targeted exploration and their predominant motivation is uncertainty reduction. 1 Although interest and deprivation curiosity can be thought of as motivational states, there are trait-like individual differences in how often people experience these states (e.g., Gross et al, 2020;Hardy et al, 2017;. At the trait level, interest and deprivation curiosity are moderately correlated (around .40 -.50; e.g., Litman, 2005).…”

Section: Facets Of Epistemic Curiositymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Inquisitive but Not Discerning: Deprivation Curiosity is Associated with Excessive Openness to Inaccurate Information

Cm¹,

Groß²,

Schooler³

2021

Preprint

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Epistemic curiosity (the desire for knowledge) is considered a catalyst for learning and innovation. The current research reveals another, darker side of curiosity, which emerges when we examine the independent contributions of the two facets that make up epistemic curiosity—interest and deprivation curiosity. In four preregistered studies (collective N = 2020), we show that interest curiosity, a facet of curiosity motivated by the joy of exploration, is associated with traits and abilities that benefit learning. These include general knowledge (Studies 1-4), intellectual humility (Studies 1-4), responsiveness to new information (Studies 1, 3 & 4), and accuracy in distinguishing real and made-up concepts (Studies 1-4). In contrast, deprivation curiosity, which is motivated by the desire to reduce uncertainty, is associated with mistakes and confusion. Individuals high in deprivation curiosity claim familiarity with novel information (Studies 1 & 3) and made-up concepts (Studies 1-4). They find meaning in pseudo-profound and pseudo-scientific “bullshit” (Studies 3 & 4) and are prone to believing and sharing disinformation or “fake news” (Study 4). To make matters worse, they lack intellectually humility (Studies 1-4), and are thus unlikely to recognize their mistakes. We find that these difficulties are not explained by narcissistic self-enhancement (Study 2) or lack of analytic thinking (Study 4), and only partially accounted for by need for closure (Study 3). We theorize that deprivation curiosity is characterized by an indiscriminate openness to information.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conflicts Of Interest/competing Interestsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Facets Of Epistemic Curiositymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Inquisitive but Not Discerning: Deprivation Curiosity is Associated with Excessive Openness to Inaccurate Information

Cm¹,

Groß²,

Schooler³

2021

Preprint

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“…Business leaders recognize a strong relationship between curiosity and innovation, and regard curiosity as a mechanism to promote success (Gino, 2018). However, at present, the empirical research evidence that the positive trait of curiosity is the distal influencing factor of innovative behavior is still weak, more research is needed to determine how the two structures are related (Gross et al, 2020). Therefore, the first purpose of this study is to focus on the positive predictive effect of employees' work curiosity on innovation behavior in Chinese context.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Curious Employees be More Innovative? Exploring the Mechanism of Intrinsic Motivation and Job Autonomy

Qiu-ling¹

2021

PSYCH

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Innovation enables organizations to survive and maintain sustainability in today's increasingly competitive business environment. Employee innovation is an issue that has received much attention from enterprises and academic circles and has never been out of date. Curiosity is the beginning of the desire for knowledge, has always been regarded as the source of instructions for innovation. However, the idea that curiosity promotes innovation is not supported by empirical research. Here, we broaden our understanding of curiosity in an organizational context through an empirical investigation how work curiosity influences innovation behavior. We also propose that the mediating role of intrinsic motivation and the moderating role of job autonomy in the abovementioned relationships. Through two-stage paired tracking and multi-source questionnaire survey, using SPSS22.0 and Mplus7.0, and based on data collected from 247 participants in China, we tested our hypotheses concerning these relationships. The study has implications for enterprises to promote employee innovation, especially through "micro-innovation" to promote "big innovation".

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“…Given the importance of curiosity for fostering learning (Kang et al, 2009;Gruber et al, 2014;Marvin & Shohamy, 2016;Gruber & Ranganath, 2019;Wade & Kidd, 2019;Gross et al, 2020) and potentially even reducing political polarization (Kahan et al, 2017;Erceg et al, 2020), successfully stimulating curiosity could have tremendous theoretical and practical value.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

If it’s important, then I’m curious: Increasing perceived usefulness stimulates curiosity

Dubey¹,

Griffiths²,

Lombrozo³

2020

Preprint

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Curiosity is considered essential for learning and sustained engagement, yet stimulating curiosity in educational contexts remains a challenge. Can people's curiosity about a topic be stimulated by evidence that the topic has potential value? In two experiments we show that increasing perceptions of value regarding a scientific topic also increases curiosity and subsequent information search. Our results also show that simply presenting interesting facts is not enough to influence curiosity, and that people are more likely to be curious about a topic if they perceive it to be directly valuable to them. Given the link between curiosity and learning, these results have important implications for science communication and education more broadly.

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Cultivating an understanding of curiosity as a seed for creativity

Cited by 64 publications

References 39 publications

Inquisitive but Not Discerning: Deprivation Curiosity is Associated with Excessive Openness to Inaccurate Information

Inquisitive but Not Discerning: Deprivation Curiosity is Associated with Excessive Openness to Inaccurate Information

Can Curious Employees be More Innovative? Exploring the Mechanism of Intrinsic Motivation and Job Autonomy

If it’s important, then I’m curious: Increasing perceived usefulness stimulates curiosity

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