What’s Your CuppaCuriosity?

Brain: Knock, knock!
Self: Who’s there?
Brain: It’s your brain!
Self: What’s up?
Brain: What are “SMART goals”?
Self: Not sure… What brought this on?
Brain: Well, everybody is talking about them!
Self: OK, let’s check… Google says SMART stands for “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound”. So, a SMART goal would be a clear and doable goal with tracking and a deadline that, once reached, would bring a positive impact to one’s life. For example, “Go to the gym four times a week” instead of “Get fit” or “Read at least one book a month” instead of “Read more”, that sort of thing.
Brain: Thank you! This is quite useful information. I will add some SMART goals to your 2024 resolutions… I believe you need them, don’t you? We’ve reached the end of January with not much to show for it..?
Self: Of course… [sigh]

Brain: Knock, knock!
Self: Who’s there?
Brain: It’s your brain! Why is the speed of light the fastest speed in the universe? Why can it not be exceeded?
Self: Wow, you are doing some deep thinking! Too much free time? Regarding your question, I believe if an object has mass it cannot travel at the speed of light, which is 300,000 kilometres per second (186,000 miles per second). Moving and accelerating such an object to the speed of light would require limitless energy, which does not exist. Only massless particles, such as light, can travel at that speed. Actually, light is part-wave part-particle, some call it a “wavicle”, but that’s beside the point¹. But we’ve read about all of this in the book Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss and Richard Gott, remember?
Brain: Yesss! Of course! Let me check this with my Memory Department…

Brain: Knock, knock!
Self: Who’s there?
Brain: It’s your brain!
Self: I thought you were interrogating your Memory Department? About the speed of light?
Brain: Yes, yes, I was, but this is waaay more urgent and waaay more important than the speed of light!
Self: Oh?
Brain: We have not checked social media for ageeees… 104 minutes, to be exact. I fear we’ve missed out on everything! We will check social media now. Then, we will watch the last three episodes of Line of Duty. I will not put you to sleep until we do! Why we haven’t binged on that last night I will never know.
Self: Because you wanted to read about circular economy.
Brain: Oooh yes, but I am glad we did! Circular economy is our golden ticket to save our Earth!… Or stop-abusing-our-Earth-as-much-as-we-have-been might be the better way to put it… Since the Industrial Revolution we have been treating our planet as a waaay-more-than-all-you-can-eat-and-digest-open-buffet of infinite resources. We have been taking those resources, making products out of them, using those products just a bit, if ever, and then discarding them pre-maturely as waste, assuming they will magically disappear from the face of the Earth – the “take → make → use → waste” approach, known as linear economy. Meanwhile, circular economy aims to prolong the lifespans of everything we use and then recycle them into new lives until they disappear from the face of the Earth “through natural causes” – or through causes that are as close to natural as possible. Circular economy also targets to regenerate Earth’s resources, unlike the ever-depleting linear economy. As a result, the practice of circular economy would: 1) preserve the value of “the essentials”, such as materials, energy, labour and time, for as long as possible; 2) reduce the extraction of virgin raw materials from the Earth, which are very finite and mostly irreplaceable; 3) eliminate waste and pollution; and thus 4) decrease climate change; 5) lessen biodiversity loss; 6) increase sustainability; and hopefully 7) improve our planet’s health². Oh, the list goes on… I’m just thinking out loud…
Self: You’ve got a lot to say about circular economy…
Brain: I do, indeed! We should write about it!
Self: Agreed!

Brain: Knock, knock!
Self: My brain, is it?
Brain: Yaaay, you’ve been expecting me?
Self: Whom else could I have been expecting?
Brain: Oooh… Well, anyway… What is curiosity?

What is Curiosity?

Sounds familiar? That voice in our heads with the never-ending questions, calculations, formulations… Rhymes and reasons… More questions! Trying to make sense of life and put the world to rights? Bring us a peace of mind? Joy? Save us from boredom?

Enter curiosity.

“A lust of the mind [for knowledge]”, wrote philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) about curiosity.

Philosopher and psychologist William James (1899) described curiosity as a drive to understand the unknown³.

In the 1950s, psychologist Daniel Berlyne offered a pioneering model of curiosity. He argued that curiosity is the “sweet spot”, some might say the “cure”, to save the mind from its two uncomfortable states: under-stimulation (e.g. boredom) and over-stimulation (e.g. anxiety)⁴. Think about how we fidget around on an “extended” wait, looking for something to watch, read, listen to etc… All in an effort to activate our curiosity and make life un-boring again! Or remember how anxious we got during the COVID-19 PAN(dem)IC? Well, lo and behold, our curiosity swooped in and glued us to the news to find answers to questions like “What are the symptoms?”, “When will we have a vaccine?”, “When will the times be normal again?”… The more we learned, or the less unknown the pandemic became, the less anxious we became. So curiosity does indeed offer us a helping hand to ease the peaks and troughs of our minds.

Following Berlyne, in 1994 George Loewenstein, Professor of Economics and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, proposed curiosity to be a response, almost an urge, to fill in the “information gap” – that emptiness we feel when we know a little bit about something but not enough…  That missing link that prevents us from coming full circle⁵. Think of all those series we end up binge-watching to the end after we gulp the pilot bait… The ones whose storylines become more mysterious as they progress… Those sneaky episodes that give us just the titbits and leave us with more confusion than what we had to start with! It is that confusion, that uncertainty, that is the basis of the information gap – and oftentimes this is not a comfortable feeling. Meanwhile, certainty is. Certainty offers clarity, safety and stability. It equips us with the knowledge and confidence – no gaps – to go about life the way we think we know how. And curiosity is our companion that guides us on our journey from uncertainty to certainty⁶.

Most researchers describe curiosity as the insatiable desire for knowledge and drive for novelty⁷. It is the informavore’s means to catch its prey that is… information! Curiosity is the propelling force that fuels science, exploration and discovery. It is also a founding pillar of social evolution and development.

We humans may well be the ultimate, the most curious informavores. We discovered electricity, established medicine, invented computers, went into space… We also invented language, built civilisations, discovered art and culture. However, information-seeking behaviour is not restricted to humans. It is wired into all organisms to sustain basic survival needs, such as finding food, shelter, even a mate⁵. Think of the squirrels foraging the forests, or our urban streets, to find the next scrumptious nut. Or perhaps watch your constantly sniffing dog… Oh, what stories they must have! All in all, curiosity is the compass that helps all of us to navigate our way in the maze that is life – by asking questions and hopefully finding the answers.

Curiosity Types

As for curiosity types, Daniel Berlyne analysed curiosity along two paths:
1) perceptual vs. epistemic; and 2) specific vs. diversive⁵.

Perceptual vs. epistemic curiosity types depict the information seeking behaviour of curiosity.

Perceptual curiosity is our innate sense of wonder, orchestrated by our senses, in response to novel stimuli we receive from our surroundings. It typically persists until we make sense of the actual stimuli. As such, it can be fairly short-lived and/or easy to satisfy⁵. Think about entering a dark room for the first time. We would be curious about it! We would, if possible, turn on the light and look around and see this new environment. We might use our other senses, too – maybe feel for temperature and texture, listen for sounds. All in all, we would familiarise ourselves with this room through the filters of our senses. Though soon after, the room’s novelty would disappear – we would have mended that information gap – and our perceptual curiosity about it would fade away. Oh, and important to note is that perceptual curiosity is obviously universal across organisms⁵! So while we humans were using our senses to fill in our information gap about that room, so were our nonhuman friends… Through looking, hearing, feeling, sniffing… tasting!?!

Epistemic curiosity, on the other hand, is the desire to gain deeper knowledge and understanding about anything and everything. It is the passion to learn, build deep and wide knowledge networks and broaden our horizons⁵. Academic learning, especially at the advanced level, is a prime example of epistemic curiosity – we can certainly fall into that rabbit hole, especially when the subject matter is interesting. And if we couple our learnings with research we may even discover new knowledge, advance the field itself and deepen that rabbit hole! Epistemic curiosity is observed primarily in humans⁵.

Berlyne’s specific vs. diversive curiosity types portray the informational content of curiosity.

Specific curiosity describes searching for a particular piece of information to answer a particular question. Specific curiosity is planned, target-oriented, methodical and selective. Its scope is narrow. And oftentimes its findings directly serve an immediate purpose⁵. We might be wondering about the time – so we would check our watch and get the answer… We might be wanting to learn another language – so we would try to immerse ourselves into that language, learn its alphabet, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, conversation and more, to hopefully speak it fluently one day.

Diversive curiosity relates, instead, to any fleeting craving for exploring the new, the novel, the unusual… about anything and everything. Diversive curiosity is random, impulsive and quite irresistible⁵. And as a bonus, it is a relatively effortless strategy to overcome boredom. The immediate utility of the information gained is debatable. However, the conversion of our brains from under-stimulated to stimulated is rewarding, borderline addictive… Perhaps here is a reason why we are constantly glued to our smartphones…

Curiosity types described so far addressed our relationship with information. Meanwhile, curiosity has a social angle, too.

Empathic curiosity refers to the genuine interest in understanding the worlds and lives of others⁷. It is the social wonder about others’ perspectives, emotions and needs, and the reasons behind them. Empathic curiosity arose with the formation of communities, civilisations… As we gathered to live closer together, we started to interact with each other. All of a sudden, other people, how they went about their days, what they did, what they said, how they felt and so on became the “new new”, the “new novel”, the “new unusual”. And our interest shifted to filling in those social information gaps – through observation, conversation, gossip… We started telling human stories, first to our immediate communities and then to as far and wide as possible, when Gutenberg’s printing press got into action! Written stories became the “literature” that triggered and fed our empathic curiosity; Gutenberg’s printing press turned into the “curiosity machine” which facilitated this process⁷. Fast forward to now, not only did our empathic curiosity grow by leaps and bounds, so did its facilitators. Leaving aside our vast array of social interactions and social media offerings, we now study the human brain and the mind in neuroscience, psychology and more to understand the foundations of human mental processes, behaviour, wellbeing… In anthropology, we study the origin and development of human society and culture, how we relate, how we differ, their implications and consequences. We are even paving the way to establish empathic relationships with animals! In sum, empathic curiosity is the force of nature that teaches us the ever-expanding dimensions of our social existence.

What type of curiosity do you practice? Do you practice all types of curiosity? Or do you practice a particular type more than the others? What directs your choice of the curiosity type(s) you practice?

Curiosity Styles

“What, after all, is your style of curiosity?” was the question that motivated Perry Zurn, Provost Assistant Professor of Philosophy at American University and Dani Bassett, J Peter Skirkanich Professor at University of Pennsylvania. Zurn and Bassett studied people’s curious behaviour patterns and they categorised them into three modes of practicing curiosity: 1) the busybody; 2) the hunter; and 3) the dancer.

The busybody is very generously curious to know anything and everything, ideally the juiciest piece of information, about whatever strikes their fancy at any given moment. The busybody is interested in a diverse range of random topics. However, their curiosity goes only as deep as scratching the surface of any one topic before they hop on to a new one and repeat. Thus, the busybody knows just a little about a whole lot. If we were to visualise a knowledge network for the busybody, we would see numerous small nuggets of information casually tethered into loose a web⁸.

The hunter, on the contrary, is extremely curious about a specific topic and is well determined and focused to get down to the root of it. The hunter thinks, plans, explores, traces, tracks, executes, learns from failure, revises, retries… The magnitude of the hunter’s curiosity is so high that nothing can derail them from their purpose, their commitment. And they go at it until they reach the bottom of that rabbit hole. As such, the hunter knows a whole lot about just a little. In the hunter’s knowledge network we would see chunky clusters of information methodically organised into a tight grid⁸.

And then there is the dancer – the one who dares to “think outside the network”, who takes chances to imagine, experiment, create. Courageously leaping out of their comfort zone and shamelessly breaking the rules of tradition, the dancer revisits the old knowledge network and remodels it to their heart’s content. They might unravel a tight grid and recycle the parts. They might knit together the most distant, unrelated bits of information to… to invent the next best thing since chocolate? The dancer harnesses the old network’s offerings to whip up brand new concepts, ideas, network paths. In the dancer’s knowledge network we would likely see a one-of-a-kind arrangement of all types of organisations, geometries⁸.

Curiosity Choice

What type and/or style of curiosity do we choose to use?

It depends.

According to Peter Gärdenfors, Professor of Cognitive Science at Lund University, “What is the geometry of curious thought? How does it relate to one’s conceptual space?”⁸.

Do we want to scratch the surface? Do a deep dive? Or are we brave enough to storm our brains?

How About You?

What’s your CuppaCuriosity? Are you busybodying? Hunting? Or are you dancing?

References

1. DeGrasse Tyson, N., Strauss, M.A., Gott, R. (2016). Welcome to the Universe: An Astrophysical Tour. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ USA.
2. Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Towards the circular economy Vol. 1: an economic and business rationale for an accelerated transition (2013).
3. James, W. (1899). Talks to Teachers on Psychology–and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company, New York.
4. Kashdan, T.B., Disabato, D.J., Goodman, F.R., Naughton, C. (2018). The Five Dimensions of Curiosity. Harv. Bus. Rev. September-October 2018, 58-60.
5. Kidd, C., and Hayden, B.Y. (2015). The Psychology and Neuroscience of Curiosity. Neuron 88, 449-460.
6. Gottlieb, J., Oudeyer, P., Lopes, M., Baranes, A. (2013). Information-seeking, curiosity, and attention: computational and neural mechanisms. Trends Cogn. Sci. 17:11, 585-593.
7. Leslie, I. (2015). Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It. Quercus, London, UK.
8. Zurn, P., Bassett, D.S. (2022). Curious Minds: The Power of Connection. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA USA.