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Choice Boosts Curiosity

Patricia Romero Verdugo^1,2; Lieke L. F. van Lieshout^1,2; Floris P. de Lange¹; Roshan Cools^1,2

¹ Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University · ² Department of Psychiatry, Radboud University Medical Centre

In our connected era, we spend significant time and effort satisfying our curiosity. Often, we choose which information we seek, but sometimes the selection is made for us. We hypothesized that humans exhibit enhanced curiosity in the context of choice. We designed a task in which healthy participants saw two lotteries on each trial. On some trials, participants chose which lottery to play. On other trials, the lottery was selected for them. Participants then indicated their curiosity about the outcome of the to-be-played lottery via self-report ratings (Experiment 1, N = 34) or willingness-to-wait decisions (Experiment 2, N = 34). We found that participants exhibited higher curiosity ratings and greater willingness to wait for the outcome of lotteries they had chosen than for lotteries that had been selected for them (controlling for initial preference). This demonstrates that choice boosts curiosity, which may have implications for boosting learning, memory, and motivation.

DOI

10.1177/09567976221082637

Volume

34 (1)

Pages

99-110

Language

en

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Sources

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