How do Intellectually Curious and Interested People Learn and Attain Knowledge? A Focus on Behavioral Traces of Information Seeking

Abstract

Intellectual curiosity and personal interest are both believed to spark information seeking and facilitate learning. In two preregistered studies (Study 1: exploratory lab study, N = 312; Study 2: online conceptual replication study, N = 960), we investigated effects of curiosity and interest on participants’ information seeking as they studied a hypertext on a historical topic. We captured their behavioral traces with log files. We also examined effects of curiosity, interest, and information-seeking behaviors on knowledge attainment. In both studies, latent profile analyses based on behavioral trace data revealed more adaptive information-seeking profiles (e.g., broad and deep-diving information searches, Study 1, or only broad information search, Study 2) and less adaptive (e.g., disengaged) information-seeking profiles. More adaptive profiles were consistently related to better knowledge test performance. Curiosity and interest positively predicted more adaptive information seeking (Study 1) and knowledge test performance (Study 2); however, these effects were inconsistent across study contexts. Furthermore, curiosity and interest did not interact in predicting information seeking and knowledge attainment (Studies 1 and 2). Overall, our work extends the understanding of how intellectually curious and interested individuals learn and attain knowledge and underscores the promise of using behavioral trace data to study interindividual differences.