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The Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale Revised (5DCR): Briefer subscales while separating overt and covert social curiosity
Abstract
Curiosity is a fundamental human motivation that influences learning, the acquisition of knowledge, and life fulfillment. Our ability to understand the benefits (and costs) of being a curious person hinges on adequate assessment. Synthesizing decades of prior research, our goal was to improve a well-validated, multi-dimensional measure of curiosity (Kashdan et al., 2018). First, we sought to distinguish between two types of social curiosity: the overt desire to learn from other people versus covert, surreptitious interest in what other people say and do. Second, we sought to remove weaker items and reduce the length of each subscale. Using data from a survey of 483 working adults (Study 1) and 460 community adults (Study 2), we found evidence to support the pre-existing four dimensions of curiosity (Joyous Exploration, Deprivation Sensitivity, Stress Tolerance, and Thrill Seeking) along with the separation of the fifth dimension into Overt Social Curiosity and Covert Social Curiosity. Each factor of the Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale Revised (5DCR) had substantive relations with a battery of personality (e.g., Big Five, intellectual humility) and well-being (e.g., psychological need satisfaction) measures. With greater bandwidth and predictive power, the 5DCR offers new opportunities for basic research and the evaluation of curiosity enhancing interventions.
... Previous research has also shown different correlates for interestand deprivation-type curiosity. Interest-type curiosity has been found to associate positively with mastery orientation, need satisfaction, selfgrowth, subjective wellbeing, meaning in life, work engagement, grit, and positive emotions; and negatively with negative emotions, depression, anxiety, burnout, and distress intolerance (Kashdan et al., 2018(Kashdan et al., , 2020Litman, 2008). In contrast, deprivation-type curiosity has been found to relate positively with anxiety, depression, distress intolerance, neuroticism, performance-avoidance orientation, and performanceapproach orientation (Kashdan et al., 2018;Litman, 2008;Litman & Jimerson, 2004). ...
... Why does interest-type curiosity have a direct relation and deprivation-type curiosity not? Previous studies have demonstrated that interest-type curiosity is unanimously associated with adaptive motivations and emotions (Kashdan et al., 2018;Kashdan, Disabato, Goodman, & McKnight, 2020;Litman, 2008;Litman et al., 2010). It has also been related to mastery goal orientation (Litman, 2008), positive emotions (Kashdan et al., 2018) and engagement (Kashdan et al., 2020), and negatively associated with depression, anxiety, burnout, and negative emotions (Kashdan et al., 2020;Litman, 2008;Litman & Jimerson, 2004). ...
... Previous studies have demonstrated that interest-type curiosity is unanimously associated with adaptive motivations and emotions (Kashdan et al., 2018;Kashdan, Disabato, Goodman, & McKnight, 2020;Litman, 2008;Litman et al., 2010). It has also been related to mastery goal orientation (Litman, 2008), positive emotions (Kashdan et al., 2018) and engagement (Kashdan et al., 2020), and negatively associated with depression, anxiety, burnout, and negative emotions (Kashdan et al., 2020;Litman, 2008;Litman & Jimerson, 2004). However, concerning deprivation-type curiosity, the correlates are mixed. ...
To examine the prospective association between epistemic curiosity and academic achievement, this study focused on 820 (64.2% females) second-year high school students (age 17–18), and their performances in the matriculation exams one year later. In addition, two types of epistemic curiosity, the interest and deprivation types, were examined as independent predictors. Furthermore, the role of curiosity in matriculation exam performance was examined at the general and subject level (i.e., mother language and math) by accounting for gender, social economic status, and subject motivations (i.e., subject expectancy and task values). The results showed that interest-type curiosity, but not deprivation-type curiosity, had an effect on overall matriculation performance. Interest-type curiosity had an initial effect on mother language test performance but the effect did not hold when mother language motivations were controlled for. For mathematics matriculation performance, none of the curiosity variables were statistically significant. The results imply that epistemic curiosity can promote academic achievement, but that the effect depends on a specific type and on general achievements.
... The five-dimensional curiosity-scale revised by Kashdan et al. (2020) is the most comprehensive inventory of curiosity. We provide the first validation of this newly proposed structure of curiosity in cultures (Germany and UK) other than the United States. ...
... In both countries, we investigate the single facets' reliability, factorial validity, and convergent and divergent validity with a large set of individualdifferences constructs. Findings demonstrate that both the new German version (6DNS) and the English version (5DCR) show psychometric properties similar to the original findings by Kashdan et al. (2020). Moreover, all facets of the inventory reach at least scalar invariance across cultures, sex, education, and largely across age. ...
... Although there exists an array of measurements for different dimensions of curiosity (e.g., Haugtvedt et al., 1992;Beißert et al., 2014;Berlyne, 1954;Litman, 2008;Zuckerman et al., 1964;Beauducel et al., 2003) none of them captures curiosity across different areas of social and intellectual life and physiology at the same time. To advance the measurement of curiosity, Kashdan and colleagues (2018) developed the five-dimensional curiosity scale (5DC), and its later version (5DCR, Kashdan et al., 2020). 5DCR measures six facets of curiosity and showed MEASURING SIX FACETS OF CURIOSITY IN TWO CULTURES 4 promising psychometric properties in 2 large samples of adults from the US. ...
The five-dimensional curiosity-scale revised by Kashdan et al. (2020) is the most comprehensive inventory of curiosity. We provide the first validation of this newly proposed structure of curiosity in cultures (Germany and UK) other than the United States. In the process, we develop the first adaptation of this inventory in another language, namely German (6DNS). We also provide the first measurement invariance analyses for this curiosity inventory across two cultures and the socio-demographics age, sex, and education. We use two diverse quota samples from Germany (N = 486) and the UK (N = 483). In both countries, we investigate the single facets' reliability, factorial validity, and convergent and divergent validity with a large set of individual-differences constructs. Findings demonstrate that both the new German version (6DNS) and the English version (5DCR) show psychometric properties similar to the original findings by Kashdan et al. (2020). Moreover, all facets of the inventory reach at least scalar invariance across cultures, sex, education, and largely across age. The findings support the six-faceted theory of curiosity and show that 5DCR/6DNS is the first curiosity inventory that allows an assessment of a multifaceted curiosity across cultures and for heterogeneous samples.
... The five-dimensional curiosity-scale revised (5DCR) by Kashdan et al. (2020) is the most comprehensive curiosity inventory available to date. 5DCR measures six facets of curiosity with four items each. ...
... In addition, we analyze the measurement invariance of the curiosity facets across the UK and Germany and across sociodemographic subgroups defined by age, sex, and education. Findings demonstrate that the new German-language adaptation of 5DCR and its English-language source version show psychometric properties similar to the original studies by Kashdan et al. (2020) in the United States. All six curiosity facets reach at least partial scalar invariance across cultures, sex, education, and mostly also across age groups. ...
... Although there exists an array of measurements for different dimensions of curiosity (e.g., Beauducel et al., 2003;Beißert et al., 2014;Berlyne, 1954;Haugtvedt et al., 1992;Litman, 2008;Zuckerman et al., 1964), none of them captures curiosity across different areas of social and intellectual life and physiology at the same time. To advance the measurement of curiosity, Kashdan et al. (2018) developed the five-dimensional curiosity scale (5DC) and recently revised it (5DCR) (Kashdan et al., 2020). The latest version, 5DCR, measures six facets of curiosity and showed promising psychometric properties in two large samples of adults from the United States. ...
The five-dimensional curiosity-scale revised (5DCR) by Kashdan et al. (2020) is the most comprehensive curiosity inventory available to date. 5DCR measures six facets of curiosity with four items each. Here, we present a German-language adaptation of the 5DCR and comprehensively validate this adaptation in a diverse sample of adults from Germany (N = 486). Moreover, we provide new evidence on the original English-language 5DCR in a parallel sample from the UK (N = 483). In both countries, we investigate the six facets' reliability, factorial validity, and convergent and discriminant validity with a large set of individual-differences constructs. In addition, we analyze the measurement invariance of the curiosity facets across the UK and Germany and across socio-demographic subgroups defined by age, sex, and education. Findings demonstrate that the new German-language adaptation of 5DCR and its English-language source version show psychometric properties similar to the original studies by Kashdan et al. (2020) in the United States. All six curiosity facets reach at least partial scalar invariance across cultures, sex, education, and mostly also across age groups. The findings support the six-faceted theory of curiosity and show that 5DCR allows for a valid assessment of curiosity across cultures.
... These included (a) agreeableness as a big five personality trait, that is, being nondepreciative, polite, cooperative, and helpful (John et al., 2008), (b) sincerity, as an HEXACO facet of honesty-humility, that is, being genuine in interpersonal relationships and not dishonest or flattering to achieve a desired outcome (Ashton et al., 2014), and (c) social curiosity, in its overt, not covert and unhealthy, form. Overt social curiosity means being interested in other people's behaviors, thoughts, and feelings in order to understand what makes people tick, and is correlated with agreeableness, compassion, need to belong, values of benevolence and universalism, interpersonal competency, and intellectual humility (Kashdan et al., 2020). ...
... Agnostics, compared to the two other convictional groups who hold more or less structured worldviews, should be located at the low pole of such a need. Furthermore, joyous exploration, a specific dimension of a broad disposition for curiosity, emphasizes the enjoyment in being interested in, learning, and deeply thinking about novel and challenging things, and is related to openness to experience, the need for competence, and valuing self-direction (Kashdan et al., 2020). It may be that agnostics not only dislike epistemic closure but even like and enjoy challenging and diverging ideas, beliefs, and worldviews. ...
... Participants were administered eight items measuring agreeableness in the Big Five Inventory (John et al., 2008), the four items measuring sincerity in the HEXACO Personality Inventory-Revised-100 (Lee & Ashton, 2018), and the four items measuring overt social curiosity in the Revised Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale (Kashdan et al., 2020). We additionally included the four items measuring the HEXACO facet of modesty, but we did not This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. ...
... Previous research has also shown different correlates for interestand deprivation-type curiosity. Interest-type curiosity has been found to associate positively with mastery orientation, need satisfaction, selfgrowth, subjective wellbeing, meaning in life, work engagement, grit, and positive emotions; and negatively with negative emotions, depression, anxiety, burnout, and distress intolerance (Kashdan et al., 2018(Kashdan et al., , 2020Litman, 2008). In contrast, deprivation-type curiosity has been found to relate positively with anxiety, depression, distress intolerance, neuroticism, performance-avoidance orientation, and performanceapproach orientation (Kashdan et al., 2018;Litman, 2008;Litman & Jimerson, 2004). ...
... Why does interest-type curiosity have a direct relation and deprivation-type curiosity not? Previous studies have demonstrated that interest-type curiosity is unanimously associated with adaptive motivations and emotions (Kashdan et al., 2018;Kashdan, Disabato, Goodman, & McKnight, 2020;Litman, 2008;Litman et al., 2010). It has also been related to mastery goal orientation (Litman, 2008), positive emotions (Kashdan et al., 2018) and engagement (Kashdan et al., 2020), and negatively associated with depression, anxiety, burnout, and negative emotions (Kashdan et al., 2020;Litman, 2008;Litman & Jimerson, 2004). ...
... Previous studies have demonstrated that interest-type curiosity is unanimously associated with adaptive motivations and emotions (Kashdan et al., 2018;Kashdan, Disabato, Goodman, & McKnight, 2020;Litman, 2008;Litman et al., 2010). It has also been related to mastery goal orientation (Litman, 2008), positive emotions (Kashdan et al., 2018) and engagement (Kashdan et al., 2020), and negatively associated with depression, anxiety, burnout, and negative emotions (Kashdan et al., 2020;Litman, 2008;Litman & Jimerson, 2004). However, concerning deprivation-type curiosity, the correlates are mixed. ...
To examine the prospective association between epistemic curiosity and academic achievement, this study focused on 820 (64.2% females) second-year high school students (age 17–18), and their performances in the matriculation exams one year later. In addition, two types of epistemic curiosity, the interest and deprivation types, were examined as independent predictors. Furthermore, the role of curiosity in matriculation exam performance was examined at the general and subject level (i.e., mother tongue and math) by accounting for gender, social economic status, and subject motivation (i.e., subject expectancy and task values). Moreover, we examined the possible mediating role of subject motivation between curiosity and achievement. The path models’ results showed that interest-type curiosity had a direct relation with overall matriculation performance, whereas deprivation-type curiosity had an indirect relation only. For mother tongue performance, interest-type curiosity was the main prospective predictor, although its direct relation disappeared. For math matriculation performance, only deprivation-type curiosity had an indirect relation. The results imply that epistemic curiosity can promote academic achievement, but that the association is achieved through different pathways that depend on curiosity types, motivation mediators, and the domain level of achievements.
... A three-dimensional model of cognitive, social, and physical curiosity (Reio et al., 2006), and recently a five-dimensional model, operationalized in the 5-DC Scale (Kashdan et al., 2018), which comprises two epistemic curiosity scales (Joyous Exploration and Deprivation Sensitivity), a Social Curiosity scale, and two other scales -Stress Tolerance and Thrill seeking. A recently revised version of the 5-DC Scale includes two sub-scales of Social Curiosity -Overt (desire to learn from other people about themselves) and Covert (interest in gossip and prying about other people) and comprises four (instead of five) items per scale, forming the 5-DCR Scale (Kashdan et al., 2020). ...
... As seen in the table, in addition to demographic information, the data of each autobiography were classified according to nine supercategories addressing three life periods: Childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The first category referred to behavioral expressions of curiosity, comprising attributes that correspond to the five dimensions of curiosity (Kashdan et al., 2018;Kashdan et al., 2020). The second and third categories referred to factors that promoted and those that inhibited curiosity, comprising nine and six attributes, respectively. ...
... The first section of the table comprises verbal expressions of curiosity, corresponding to the five-dimensional model (Kashdan et al., 2018;Kashdan et al., 2020). Expressions related to the first curiosity dimension -Joyous explorationwere classified into four categories: Drive or compulsion to explore, becoming fascinated with exploring/ learning/understanding, asking questions/wondering, and reading. ...
Evidence regarding curiosity collected from autobiographies of renowned scientists and inventors written in the 20th and 21st centuries were analyzed to detect authentic expressions related to the five-dimensional model of curiosity and personality, in addition to other personal attributes. Explored were also profiles of contextual and personal factors leading scientifically-curious individuals to well-known professional expertise. Statistical analysis yielded three distinct profiles of those factors: The first depicted established families that offered the writers an intellectual home environment occasioning meaningful interactions and exposure to diverse fields and experiences. The writers also mentioned the influence of others throughout their professional development. The second profile depicted difficult background circumstances rendering the writers' areas of interest quite unusual in their family. While not mentioning receiving help from mentors or others, the writers express resilience and determination throughout their professional development. The third profile depicted the middle class's supportive and loving families who provided the writers a safe environment for development yet did not push them in a definite direction. Characterized are highly versatile individuals who considered exploration and learning pure pleasure.
The study's contribution to deepening understanding of curious minds and their developmental trajectories was discussed with reference to autobiographical data's advantages and disadvantages.
... CiES was reduced from ten scale items down to seven. Then, through multiple regression analyses, CiES and IP were analyzed to see how much of their respective variances could be attributed to dimensions of trait curiosity from an adapted version of Kashdan, Disabato, Goodman, ＆ Mcknight's (2020) multi-dimensional curiosity scale, the 5DCR, which for CiES was 23％ and for IP 29％. In a final regression model IP ＆ CiES were assessed as to how much explanatory variance they provided together to an 'intended learning effort' scale, for which just over a majority of the variance was accounted for at 51%. ...
... In the field of SLA, since Gardner's (1985; tripartite construct of integrativeness-imbued with both curiosity and interest toward knowing more about a language, its speakers and their associated culture -epistemic curiosity and interest have often been present as unemphasized corollaries in many L2 motivational studies: in Kruidenier & Clément's (1986) work highlighting knowledge and friendship orientations; subsequently, the work of Noels, Pelletier, Clément, & Vallerand (2000) found positive correlations between intrinsic motivational needs (in particular one termed 'knowledge' ) and learning intentions; in the evolution on from integrativeness and orientations in Yashima and associates (Yashima, 2000;2002;Yashima, Zen-Nishide & Shimizu, 2004) work on international (170) posture. More recently they have appeared conspicuously front-andcentre in research, such as in work by: Houghton (2014) This particular study seeks to investigate how certain aspects of curiosity and interest in learning English-in a new construct scale developed by Smith (2019a), 'Curiosity in English Studies' (CiES)relate to and can be differentiated from Yashima's (2009) construct of 'International Posture' (IP); how psychological curiosity constructs in the form of Kashdan et al's (2020) revised multi-dimensional scale of curiosity (5DCR) predict CiES & IP; finally, how much variance in a measure of intended learning effort toward English studies can be accounted for by IP and CiES together. Given how central both curiosity and interest are to this study they must first be explicated, and some of the more pertinent literature in the field of SLA relating to them detailed. ...
... In the case that they could be reliably employed, would they have any significant effect when included in the regression models? This has added relevance given (181) the further evolution into Kashdan et al's (2020) 5DCR. Another question related to further analysis on Smith's (2019a) data set (uncommented on as it was not part of the original research questions) suggesting CiES and IP shared significant variance and that it may be possible under factor analysis to reduce them down to two intermixed factors. ...
English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Japan and across the world are often faced with the problem of how to engage their students. One potential control lever to increase student engagement is through stimulating curiosity & interest. This study analyzed Likert-scale questionnaire data from 285 students at an all boys high school in Japan. It first examined through principal components analysis how a construct developed by Smith (2019a), labelled 'Curiosity in English Studies' (CiES), could be parsimoniously separated from Yashima's (2009) construct of 'International Posture’ (IP), with which it had overlapping variance. CiES was reduced from ten scale items down to seven. Then, through multiple regression analyses, CiES and IP were analyzed to see how much of their respective variances could be attributed to dimensions of trait curiosity from an adapted version of Kashdan, Disabato, Goodman, & Mcknight’s (2020) multi-dimensional curiosity scale, the 5DCR, which for CiES was 23% and for IP 29%. In a final regression model IP & CiES were assessed as to how much explanatory variance they provided together to an ‘intended learning effort’ scale, for which just over a majority of the variance was accounted for at 51%. These relationships suggest that both the CiES and IP constructs can be useful conceptual tools for setting up the conditions in EFL classrooms for the growth and flourishing of student curiosity, interest and engagement.
http://hdl.handle.net/2065/00080672
... Through a series of studies that began with over 100 curiosity-related items, Kashdan et al. identified five major dimensions of curiosity: joyous exploration, deprivation sensitivity, stress tolerance, social curiosity, and thrill seeking. A more recent iteration of the scale splits social curiosity into overt and covert social curiosity (Kashdan et al., 2020). While the new scale from Kashdan et al. provides a data-driven approach to identifying dimensions of curiosity, it leaves some important theoretical questions about curiosity unanswered. ...
... Analyzing curiosity through this perspective may also help produce a taxonomy for curiosity that carves nature at its joints. Curiosity has been split in several different ways, including novelty-seeking and scientific (James, 1890), perceptual and epistemic (Berlyne, 1954) specific and diversive (Berlyne 1966), interest and deprivation (Litman, 2008), forward and backward (Shin & Kim, 2019), bottom-up and top-down (Kashdan, 2012), and along several other dimensions (e.g., Kashdan et al., 2020). One reason why so much diversity exists in classifying and defining curiosity is because functional accounts of curiosity have yet to be rigorously investigated. ...
Since Berlyne's groundbreaking work in the 1960's, curiosity has been a popular topic for psychological research. Despite a rich history of research, scientists have not been able to agree upon a single definition or taxonomy of curiosity. These diverging perspectives have led to a breadth of research that has yet to be integrated under one framework. Moreover, most research on curiosity has focused on neural mechanisms and ontogenetic characteristics, while the evolutionary aspects of curiosity have received little attention. I propose that research on curiosity can benefit from an evolutionary perspective, and more broadly from a biological perspective on information-gathering behavior. In this chapter, I synthesize the literature on curiosity from the perspective of behavioral biology-i.e., Tinbergen's four questions. The behavioral biology framework provides a powerful lens through which questions about behavior can be asked and iterative empirical work and theoretical construction can take place. In particular, I argue that evolutionary perspectives on curiosity can help identify the "joints" of nature at which curiosity may be carved. By identifying the function of different types of curiosity, a more robust and universal taxonomy of curiosity can be created.
... Used in the meaning of "desire for acquiring new information" (Renner, 2006) curiosity affects learning, acquiring information and completing lifetime. From this aspect this can be said that curiosity is an essential human motivation (Kashdan, et al., 2020). W. James described curiosity as an instinctual such as; hunting, toolmaking and love. ...
... cited Jirout andKlahr, 2011). Social curiosity (Renner, 2006;Kashdan, et al., 2020) and a situational and continuous curiosity based on a special moment and emotions related with general situations of individuals' (Spielberger and Butler, 1971;Spielberger, Peters and Frain, 1976) These are can be exemplified for different kinds of curiosity. ...
... Researchers are reminded to take caution of the differences and further clarify the definitions of openness in mindfulness practice. Moreover, future researchers may revise the instructions of the openness scale (Golomb-Leavitt, 2015) and/or employ the Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale Revised (Kashdan, Disabato, Goodman, & McKnight, 2020) to better capture the state of openness and curiosity respectively, and further distinguish them from mindfulness. ...
While mindfulness has been found to increase well-being, the association between mindfulness and meaning in life has received relatively little attention. The present study examined the hypothetical positive relationship between mindfulness and meaning in life alongside the mechanism underlying the relationship. Specifically, guided by the Mindfulness-to-Meaning Theory, a serial mediation model testing openness to experience and curiosity as the mediators for the connection was proposed. Undergraduate student participants (N = 1267) from four countries (Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, & Taiwan) responded to a battery of tests consisting of the Mindful Awareness and Attention Scale, the Big Five Inventory Openness Scale, the Curiosity and Exploration Inventory-II, and the Meaning in Life scale. Based on a correlation analysis, the four variables were positively correlated with one another in the whole sample except for the relationship between mindfulness and curiosity. Furthermore, the mediation analysis supports the positive correlation between mindfulness and the presence of meaning in life indirectly via openness and then curiosity while controlling search for meaning in life. Such pattern is consistent across the four samples. Overall, the findings offer cross-cultural evidence on the positive association between mindfulness and meaning in life and shed light on the underlying processes. Therefore, mindfulness practices have potential applications in achieving meaningful lives.
... Beyond cybersecurity, curiosity may well contribute to performance in many knowledge work domains similarly characterized by dynamic and novel information environments. However, construct validation and measure development research are still ongoing, such that the dimensionality of curiosity remains unsettled (e.g., Kashdan, Disabato, Goodman, & McKnight, 2020), and the potential utility of the construct in work settings in general, and cybersecurity work settings in particular, is as yet unknown. As regards the workplace, perhaps the best existing evidence is from Mussel (2013), who found that curiosity, measured using the Work-Related Curiosity Scale (Mussel, Spengler, Litman, & Schuler, 2012), explained significant incremental validity beyond 12 other cognitive (e.g., general mental ability, fluid intelligence) and noncognitive (e.g., Big Five personality traits) predictors of job performance. ...
Cybersecurity is an ever-present problem for organizations, but organizational science has barely begun to enter the arena of cybersecurity research. As a result, the “human factor” in cybersecurity research is much less studied than its technological counterpart. The current manuscript serves as an introduction and invitation to cybersecurity research by organizational scientists. We define cybersecurity, provide definitions of key cybersecurity constructs relevant to employee behavior, illuminate the unique opportunities available to organizational scientists in the cybersecurity arena (e.g., publication venues that reach new audiences, novel sources of external funding), and provide overall conceptual frameworks of the antecedents of employees’ cybersecurity behavior. In so doing, we emphasize both end-users of cybersecurity in organizations and employees focused specifically on cybersecurity work. We provide an expansive agenda for future organizational science research on cybersecurity—and we describe the benefits such research can provide not only to cybersecurity but also to basic research in organizational science itself. We end by providing a list of potential objections to the proposed research along with our responses to these objections. It is our hope that the current manuscript will catalyze research at the interface of organizational science and cybersecurity.
... The AQ-short measures (subclinical) autism-like traits, which some studies suggest may alter Mooney perception (Król & Król, 2019;Loth et al., 2010). The Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale Revised (5DCR; Kashdan et al., 2020) is a validated questionnaire assessing five dimensions of curiosity (joyous exploration, deprivation sensitivity, stress tolerance, thrill-seeking, and social curiosity). However, it does not include a perceptual curiosity dimension, so we included the 10 items of the Perceptual Curiosity Scale (PCS; Litman et al., 2005). ...
Current theories propose that our sense of curiosity is determined by the learning progress or information gain that our cognitive system expects to make. However, few studies have explicitly tried to quantify subjective information gain and link it to measures of curiosity. Here, we asked people to report their curiosity about the intrinsically engaging perceptual 'puzzles' known as Mooney images, and to report on the strength of their aha experience upon revealing the solution image (curiosity relief). We also asked our participants (279) to make a guess concerning the solution of the image, and used the distribution of these guesses to compute the crowdsourced semantic entropy (or ambiguity) of the images, as a measure of the potential for information gain. Our results confirm that curiosity and, even more so, aha experience is substantially associated with this semantic information gain measure. These findings support the expected information gain theory of curiosity and suggest that the aha experience or intrinsic reward is driven by the actual information gain. In an unannounced memory part, we also established that the often reported influence of curiosity on memory is fully mediated by the aha experience or curiosity relief. We discuss the implications of our results for the burgeoning fields of curiosity and psychoaesthetics.
... It comprised 441 items concerning respondents' sociodemographics, the circumstances surrounding their transition to emergency remote instruction, personal experiences, behaviors, attitudes, feelings, physical and mental health, as well as their personality traits. Psychological constructs were measured with 23 short scales developed from IPIP items and inspired among others by in-depth analyses of Brief COPE (Carver, 1997), Life Orientation Test-Revised (Scheier et al., 1994), Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale Revised (5DCR; Kashdan et al., 2020), Individual Adaptability I-ADAPT-M (Ployhart and Bliese, 2006), and Grit Scale (Duckworth et al., 2007). Due to the rather general nature of these existing questionnaires, which does not permit capturing more situationoriented circumstances, we developed custom-made scales, single-item indicators, as well as open-ended questions. ...
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has upended lives and thrown the taken for granted into disarray. One of the most affected groups were teachers and students, faced with the necessity of school closures and—where logistically feasible—an urgent shift to emergency remote instruction, often with little prior notice. In this contribution, based on an online survey involving participants from 91 countries, we offer a perspective bridging the two groups, by investigating the role of teachers' demographics and professional adaptation to emergency remote teaching in their perception of how their students were coping with the novel situation. The resultant model explains 51% of variance, and highlights the relative weights of the predictor variables. Given the importance of teacher perceptions in the effectiveness of their instruction, the findings may offer valuable guidelines for future training and intervention programs.
... Analyzing curiosity through this perspective may also help produce a taxonomy for curiosity that carves nature at its joints. Curiosity has been split in several different ways, including noveltyseeking and scientific (James, 1890), perceptual and epistemic (Berlyne, 1954) specific and diversive (Berlyne 1966), interest and deprivation (Litman, 2008), forward and backward (Shin (e.g., Kashdan et al., 2020). One reason why so much diversity exists in classifying and defining curiosity is because functional accounts of curiosity have yet to be rigorously investigated. ...
Since Berlyne’s groundbreaking work in the 1960’s, curiosity has been a popular topic for psychological research. Despite a rich history of research, scientists have not been able to agree upon a single definition or taxonomy of curiosity. These diverging perspectives have led to a breadth of research that has yet to be integrated under one framework. Moreover, most research on curiosity has focused on neural mechanisms and ontogenetic characteristics, while the evolutionary aspects of curiosity have received little attention. I propose that research on curiosity can benefit from an evolutionary perspective, and more broadly from a biological perspective on information-gathering behavior. In this chapter, I synthesize the literature on curiosity from the perspective of behavioral biology – i.e., Tinbergen’s four questions. The behavioral biology framework provides a powerful lens through which questions about behavior can be asked and iterative empirical work and theoretical construction can take place. In particular, I argue that evolutionary perspectives on curiosity can help identify the “joints” of nature at which curiosity may be carved. By identifying the function of different types of
... However, DS approximates our research perspective of learning. JE and thrill seeking are pleasurable states of internal "enjoyment", but the latter is often associated with adverse and unwanted negative emotional outcomes and experiences (Renner, 2006;Kashdan et al., 2020). Thus, this study chooses DS , JE and SC to examine the antecedents of service employee creativity. ...
Purpose
This study develops a framework to examine how, why and when different traits of employee curiosity affect service creativity by considering the roles of knowledge sharing and task autonomy.
Design/methodology/approach
To reduce common method bias, this work separated the variables investigated into three parts, each of which was randomly used to collect data at three different periods. A total of 822 matched questionnaires obtained from frontline employees of service firms provided useable data for hypothesis tests. A moderated mediation approach was employed to analyse the data.
Findings
Results are as follows: (1) Deprivation sensitivity, joyous exploration and social curiosity have positive effects on knowledge collecting (KC) and knowledge donating (KD). (2) KD mediates the relationships between the three curiosity traits and service creativity. (3) Task autonomy enhances and suppresses the mediating effects of KC and KD, respectively, on the curiosity–service creativity relationship.
Research limitations/implications
This study has two main research implications: First, as different types (traits) of employee curiosity have different effects on service creativity, a single-dimensional view of employee curiosity may mask the differences of individual dimension and lead to a oversimplified conclusion. Second, lifting the vein from employee curiosity to service creativity has to consider the roles of knowledge sharing and task autonomy.
Originality/value
This research is the first to contribute to the service innovation literature by revealing the underlying mechanisms through which different types of employee curiosity affect service creativity and uncovering the moderating roles of task autonomy in the process mechanisms.
... The latter is less commonly experienced in the workplace, although it can be a relevant motive in jobs involving sensory experiences, such as within the visual, performing or culinary arts. More recent research on the nature and dimensionality of curiosity has shown that curiosity manifests distinctly in regard to seeking specific forms of information, namely seeking information about other people in the social world or knowledge about one's inner-self (Hartung & Renner, 2011;Kashdan, Disabato, Goodman, & McKnight, 2020a). Berlyne (1960) also distinguished between diverse and specific exploration. ...
... Such explicit questions could reveal additional factors responsible for evoking curiosity. Finally, our investigation considered morbid curiosity, but no other forms of curiosity were investigated, such as the Five Dimension Curiosity Scale Revised (Kashdan et al., 2020). Including additional measures of curiosity in future research would allow an assessment of the relative importance of morbid curiosity versus other forms of curiosity in the enjoyment of violently themed media. ...
Research suggests that engagement with music containing violent themes (e.g., extreme metal, rap) often results in positive psychosocial outcomes for fans. However, it is not clear why fans are attracted to ‘violent’ music in the first place. Experiment 1 (N = 146) examined whether trait morbid curiosity is associated with fans' self-reported consumption of music containing violent themes. Experiment 2 (N = 96) presented short excerpts of extreme metal and rap music with or without violent themes to investigate whether individual differences in morbid curiosity predict listeners' curiosity towards, enjoyment of, and desire to further engage with novel music with violent themes. Both experiments supported predictions: (1) fans of violently themed music exhibited greater morbid curiosity than fans of non-violently themed music; (2) morbid curiosity significantly predicted the consumption and enjoyment of music containing violent themes; (3) fans and non-fans' intentions to further engage with novel music containing violent themes were significantly predicted by individual differences in the prevalence and magnitude of morbid curiosity. Findings suggest that trait morbid curiosity is an important factor in fans' initial motivation to listen to and subsequently enjoy music containing violent themes. Implications for theories describing how fans derive positive psychosocial outcomes from media violence are discussed.
... In the widely used five-dimensional curiosity scale (Kashdan et al., 2020), thrill-seeking is a dimension of curiosity with risk-taking manifestations. However, a highly curious individual does not necessarily enjoy and seek out new environments with high physical risk or intellectual stimulation; in fact, highly curious people are more likely to recognize, pursue, and immerse themselves in novel and challenging experiences (Kashdan et al., 2004). ...
... osity to learn about natural disasters and their mitigation. By watching the natural disaster content on the video, students feel empathy, so they respond by asking questions. Empathy requires attention and cognitive effort (Ferguson et al., 2020). Cognitive empathy is sometimes referred to as literature on perspective taking (Moore et al., 2015). Kashdan et. al, (2020) says that curiosity is about seeking information and experiences for one's benefit by directing one's behavior and one of the most efficient and effective ways to obtain new information is by observing and interacting with the environment (communicating with others. To reduce the impact of these natural disasters, students must know how ...
... While state curiosity describes an individual's state or feeling in a given moment, people with a tendency to regularly experience state curiosity in everyday life are described as being high in trait curiosity (e.g. Litman & Spielberger, 2003;Kashdan et al., 2018;Kashdan, Disabato, Goodman, & McKnight, 2020). Here, we focus on state curiosity (simply curiosity, hereafter) and ask whether moments in which listeners perceive a change in unfolding music may drive them to also feel more curious about how the heard music will continue. ...
Music offers a useful opportunity to consider the factors contributing to the experience of curiosity in the context of dynamically changing stimuli. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the perception of change in music triggers curiosity as to how the heard music will unfold. Participants were presented with unfamiliar musical excerpts and asked to provide continuous ratings of their subjective experience of curiosity and calm, and their perception of change, as the music unfolded. As hypothesized, we found that for all musical pieces, the perceptual experience of change Granger-caused feelings of curiosity but not feelings of calm. Our results suggest music is a powerful tool with which to examine the factors contributing to curiosity induction. Accordingly, we outline ways in which extensions to the approach taken here may be useful: both in elucidating our information-seeking drive more generally, and in elucidating the manifestation of this drive during music listening.
... Personality characteristics can also be a contributing factor for individuals' gossip behavior. For instance, researchers have found that people high on extraversion or neuroticism (Hartung & Renner, 2013;Robbins & Karan, 2020), dispositional curiosity (Litman & Pezzo, 2007; also see Kashdan et al., 2020 for a similar theoretical proposition), negative affectivity (Feinberg et al., 2012;Wu et al., 2018), dark personality characteristics such as cynicism (Bashir et al., 2020), and dark triad traits such as psychopathy and narcissism (Hartung et al., 2019;Lyons & Hughes, 2015) engaged in more gossip behavior. In a sample of college students, Watson (2011) found that gossip was related to external locus of control, high self-monitoring, low self-efficacy, and low self-concept clarity. ...
The workplace gossip construct is currently divergently interpreted by organizational scholars, with perceptions of its origins, functions, and impacts varying widely. In this comprehensive narrative review, we seek to provide much needed clarity around the often studied and frequently demonstrated employee behavior of workplace gossip by synthesizing gossip studies conducted during the past four decades in both the organization and psychology literatures. The first section of our review considers measures, designs, and theoretical frameworks featured in these studies. In the second section, we consolidate and integrate research findings from the extant literatures into three emerging categories of gossip antecedents (intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational antecedents), four categories of gossip functions (information exchange, ego enhancement, social integration, and social segregation), and three categories of gossip consequences (consequences for gossip senders/recipients, for gossip targets, and beyond the triads). In the last section, we propose an integrative model to guide future investigations on the antecedents, functions, and consequences of workplace gossip. Our review aims to provide a clear overview of existing gossip research across the organization and psychology literatures and to highlight several important trends to open up various opportunities for future impactful workplace gossip scholarship.
... In contrast, DEC reflects a state of dissatisfaction with a specific problem and is conceptualized as a "need to know" with moderately unpleasant feelings (Litman, 2008;Subaşı, 2019). It is correlated with pervasively negative emotions such as depression, anxiety, and burnout (Litman, 2008;Kashdan et al., 2020). Nevertheless, some empirical studies have indicated that DEC orients individuals to have positive relationships with performance achievement, intrinsic motivation, self-growth, stress tolerance, and perseverance to master goal orientation (Litman et al., 2010;Kashdan et al., 2018). ...
Whether the hands-on experience of creating inventions can promote students’ interest in pursuing a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) career has not been extensively studied. In a quantitative study, we drew on the attitude-behavior-outcome framework to explore the correlates between hands-on making attitude, epistemic curiosities, and career interest. This study targeted students who joined the selection competition for participating in the International Exhibition of Young Inventors (IEYI) in Taiwan. The objective of the invention exhibition is to encourage young students to make innovative projects by applying STEM knowledge and collaborative design. We collected 220 valid data from participants in the 2021 Taiwan IEYI selection competition and conducted a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. Results indicated that: (1) hands-on making attitude was positively related to two types of epistemic curiosity; (2) interest-type epistemic curiosity (IEC) and deprivation-type epistemic curiosity (DEC) were positively associated with STEM career interest; additionally, DEC had a higher coefficient on STEM career interest than IEC; (3) Both types of EC had a mediating role between hands-on making attitude and STEM career interest. It is expected that encouraging students to participate in invention exhibition competitions can raise both types of EC and increase their interest in pursuing STEM careers.
In a time of societal acrimony, psychological scientists have turned to a possible antidote — intellectual humility. Interest in intellectual humility comes from diverse research areas, including researchers studying leadership and organizational behaviour, personality science, positive psychology, judgement and decision-making, education, culture, and intergroup and interpersonal relationships. In this Review, we synthesize empirical approaches to the study of intellectual humility. We critically examine diverse approaches to defining and measuring intellectual humility and identify the common element: a meta-cognitive ability to recognize the limitations of one’s beliefs and knowledge. After reviewing the validity of different measurement approaches, we highlight factors that influence intellectual humility, from relationship security to social coordination. Furthermore, we review empirical evidence concerning the benefits and drawbacks of intellectual humility for personal decision-making, interpersonal relationships, scientific enterprise and society writ large. We conclude by outlining initial attempts to boost intellectual humility, foreshadowing possible scalable interventions that can turn intellectual humility into a core interpersonal, institutional and cultural value. Intellectual humility involves acknowledging the limitations of one’s knowledge and that one’s beliefs might be incorrect. In this Review, Porter and colleagues synthesize concepts of intellectual humility across fields and describe the complex interplay between intellectual humility and related individual and societal factors.
We present an assessment of curiosity measures used in organizational and
social psychology literature published since the start of this century. We focus on: a) the validity and reliability of existing measures; b) the main dimensions tapping the operationalization of the constructs; and c) the use of each measure in organizational settings. We identify implications of the use of each of these measures for theory and practice in the field of human resource development. Our study concludes with an assessment of the contexts in which the available measures of curiosity may be used and potential challenges in the application of these measures to further the field of human resource development. We find that curiosity measures may be most useful in organizational contexts where learning occurs, including training, socialization, collaboration, research and development, selection, global management, innovation, creativity, and career change.
Because of the necessity of assessing online resources and systems with reference to learning-related issues, this study aimed to investigate the impact of curiosity on evaluating websites’ information among university students. The study was an analytical survey and correlational. Based on Cochran sampling formula, the sample included 231 undergraduate students at the Faculty of Education and Psychology located at the Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. Two highly validated questionnaires were used to measure the two main variables of curiosity and websites’ information credibility. The data gathered were then analyzed by software SPSS 24.0. Pearson’s correlation test showed a significant correlation between dimensions of web information credibility and the curiosity except for deprivation sensitivity. According to the findings of the general regression model, three phases for affecting trustworthiness evaluation were acceptable based on social curiosity, joyous exploration, and thrill seeking, respectively. Furthermore, three phases for affecting expertise evaluation were acceptable based on joyous exploration, social curiosity, and thrill seeking, respectively. Students with deprivation sensitivity and stress tolerance were unable to find credible sources because of the negative emotions and experiences impeding them to do it well. Curiosity factors influenced the online credibility evaluation highly in the sense that almost half of the students’ evaluations were based on their curiosity-related traits.
The Indian start-ups boomed during the COVID-19 Pandemic. From homemade cakes to decorative items, the nationwide lockdown resulted in many creative ideas materializing. However, considering today's new normal, it has become more than just a prerequisite for a successful entrepreneur to possess leadership qualities. When an individual believes that a leader lies in one's own influence of working effectively, he/she outshines an entrepreneur. One of the qualities that makes a leader who he is, is his level of curiosity. A rightly kindled curiosity may lead an individual to be an entrepreneur. This research paper is an attempt to assess the impact of Self-Leadership on Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation with Curiosity as a mediating factor. A purposive sampling technique was used. It consisted of 94 final year undergraduate female students of the Chennai region to whom Structured questionnaire were distributed. Weighted mean, Pearson's Correlation, Regression and Sobel test was used to analyze the data. The study revealed that there is a positive and significant impact of Self-Leadership on Entrepreneurial Attitude and Curiosity had a mediating effect.
A number of recent studies have explicitly introduced curiosity models into the analysis of online information consumption, most notably in the design of recommendation systems. However, most prior efforts have neglected the role of social influence as a component of the curiosity stimulation process, which has been referred to as social curiosity. In this paper, we propose a number of metrics to quantify social curiosity applying them to WhatsApp, a widely used communication platform. We show that our metrics capture aspects that are complementary to other variables priorly related to curiosity stimulation and use them to offer a broad characterization of user curiosity as a driving force behind communication in WhatsApp.
Anxiety, stress, dissatisfaction, and disengagement at work have continued to rise in the United States, due partly to global conditions of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. The persistent cadence of associated change requires individuals to develop an embodied integration of sophisticated cognitive, emotional, social, and meaning-making dexterity. In effect, in such conditions, individuals need curiosity. This phenomenological study examined the lived experience of curiosity of an individual within the context of receiving humanistic coaching based on a sample of nine executives. The resulting data revealed a biopsychosocial, multi-componential process associated with curiosity. Contextualizing state curiosity in this way may encourage researchers and practitioners to forgo the perspective that curiosity occurs in relatively discrete intervals and, instead, embrace the concept that curiosity states encompass experiential variability across the mind-body dimensions (e.g., cognitive activation, emotional intensity, somatic sensation) associated with distinct stages within a state curiosity framework. This multi-componential process view also suggests that the stages of state curiosity may involve a mechanism of linking separate states, thereby, influencing the intensity, sustainability and/or frequency of episodic curiosity. Finally, framing state curiosity as a multi-componential process may also help to bring a humanistic texturization, which could contribute to our intersubjective understanding of how individuals are curious.
Purpose
The study examined the impact of two dimensions of curiosity: joyous exploration (JE) and deprivation sensitivity (DSv) on informal learning effort (ILE) and attitude toward knowledge sharing (ATKS). The authors further explored the mediating effect of learning culture (LC) in the organization on the relationship of the two curiosity dimensions with ILE and ATKS. Additionally, the authors investigated the moderating effect of group dynamics in the form of intragroup task conflict (ITC) and relationship conflict (IRC) on the relationship of curiosity variables with LC, ILE and ATKS.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey instrument was distributed to 790 knowledge workers in various organizations through their HR managers. 403 responses were returned and used in the study.
Findings
JE, the self-determined manifestation of curiosity, impacts all elements of ILE and ATKS, while DSv influences a few aspects of ILE. The effect of JE on the dependent variables is, however, more substantial at low levels of ITC. ITC and IRC independently impact ILE, but only ITC moderates the relationships involving JE (but not DSv). LC emerges from JE (but not from DSv) and partially mediates its association with ILE and ATKS.
Originality/value
Through this work, we demonstrate the differential relevance of the curiosity dimensions and the intragroup conflict types – and their interaction effect – on learning effort and attitude toward knowledge sharing. The findings of the study open new avenues for interventions within the workplace learning and knowledge sharing domain.
We perform the first tests of individual-level preferences for “blinding” in decision making: purposefully restricting the information one sees in order to form a more objective evaluation. For example, when grading her students’ papers, a professor might choose to “blind” herself to students’ names by anonymizing them, thus evaluating the papers on content alone. We predict that curiosity will shape blinding preferences, motivating people to seek out (vs. be blind to) irrelevant, potentially biasing information about a target of evaluation. We further predict that decision frames that reduce or satisfy curiosity about potentially biasing information will encourage choices to be blind to that information. We find support for these hypotheses across seven studies (N = 4,356) and multiple replications (N = 9,570), demonstrating consequences for bias and accuracy across a variety of evaluation contexts. We discuss implications for research on mental contamination as well as the “dark side” of curiosity.
The success of horror films, popularity of true crime, and prevalence of violence in the news implies that morbid curiosity is a common psychological trait. However, research on morbid curiosity is largely absent from the psychological literature. In this paper, I present a psychometric tool for assessing morbid curiosity, defined as a motivation to seek out information about dangerous phenomena, and use it to investigate the psychological nature of morbid curiosity. In studies 1 and 2 (ntotal = 1370), the Morbid Curiosity Scale was developed and its relationship to personality was assessed. Morbidly curious individuals were rebellious, socially curious, and low in animal reminder disgust. Study 3 (n = 317) demonstrated that trait morbid curiosity is stable over 4–6 weeks and that morbidly curious individuals prefer movies where threat is a central theme. In Study 4 (n = 137), participants were presented with a choice between morbid information and non-morbid information (image and text). Morbid curiosity predicted over half the variance (r² = 0.53) in decisions to further investigate morbid information. These four studies provide evidence that morbid curiosity is a normally occurring psychological trait that can be assessed using the new 24-item Morbid Curiosity Scale.
Much has been discovered about well-being since 1998, when positive psychology entered the lexicon. Among the wide range of areas in positive psychology, in this commentary we discuss recent discoveries on (1) distinctions between meaning in life, a sense of purpose, and happiness, (2) psychological or personality strengths and the benefits of particular combinations, and (3) resilience after exposure to adversity. We propose a series of questions about this literature with the hope that well-being researchers and practitioners continue to update their perspectives based on high-quality scientific findings and revise old views that rely on shaky empirical ground.
The interest/deprivation model of trait curiosity contrasts curiosity as a feeling of interest versus a feeling of deprivation. In two studies, we explored (N = 324), then confirmed (N = 397) relations that curiosity-as-interest and curiosity-as-deprivation had with anticipatory affect and information seeking behaviour during a trivia task. We found that (1) curiosity-as-interest predicted feeling curious/interested, whereas curiosity-as-deprivation predicted feeling both curious/interested and frustrated/bothered, when anticipating trivia answers; (2) curiosity-as-interest was the more robust trait predictor of information seeking (i.e., paying a cost to view trivia answers), and (3) anticipatory affect mediated the relations that both curiosity traits had with information seeking. These findings suggest that both traits in the I/D model of curiosity predict their definitional epistemic experiences.
Curiosity is a universal and malleable positive character strength. It has been linked to physical, social, emotional, and psychological well-being, academic success, and success in adulthood. Curiosity is especially important in early childhood because this is a critical stage of development when children’s curiosity is still abundant and organic. But for all its value, curiosity remains under-recognized and under-studied. There is no universally agreed upon definition of curiosity in adults or children. As a result, the research community has varying opinions on how to define, measure, and enhance curiosity. And in many current day classrooms, an overly rigid top-down structure contributes to a disconcerting trend of diminishing curiosity as children grow older. Reviewing the scientific research across various fields, I describe seven psychological constructs (attention, novelty, solitude, inquiry, exploration, surprise, and awe) that can foster curiosity behaviors. I designed a Curiosity Toy Kit incorporating these seven curiosity components to be used as positive interventions for enhancing curiosity in early childhood, when children are 5-6 years old and entering formal education. Adults can use the Curiosity Toy Kit to encourage children to develop positive curiosity behaviors, helping them to flourish in school and beyond.
We replicated and extended (N = 207) work on the social values (i.e., obedience, tradition, security, benevolence, universalism, self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement, and power) linked to the Dark Triad traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism). Each of the traits was positively associated with values of achievement and power. Psychopathy and narcissism were both negatively correlated with benevolence, and psychopathy and Machiavellianism were negatively correlated with obedience. Psychopathy was also negatively correlated with tradition. Sex differences in the values of tradition, benevolence, and power were mediated by psychopathy. We suggest that high rates of the Dark Triad traits facilitate, for men, holding social values that emphasize standing out whereas low rates facilitate, for women, fitting in.
This study examined the effect of satisfaction of the basic psychological need for autonomy on curiosity. One hundred and fifty-four participants first completed measures of autonomy-need satisfaction and curiosity. Participants were then randomly assigned to either a condition that supported autonomy of choice or a condition not supporting autonomy of choice. The autonomy-choice intervention provided participants with choice of topic for a video they could watch, while those in the no-autonomy of choice condition did not have choice. All participants then rated their curiosity regarding the topic of the video. Results showed that participants whose need for autonomy was more satisfied had higher levels of curiosity. Participants randomly assigned to the autonomy of choice condition providing choice of topic showed greater curiosity regarding the topic than participants who did not have a choice of topic. Autonomy of choice was most beneficial in stimulating a high level of curiosity about the topic for participants who had low general autonomy need satisfaction. The results of the study support the importance of self-determination in fostering the emotion of curiosity.
Philosophers and behavioral scientists refer to wisdom as unbiased reasoning that guides one toward a balance of interests and promotes a good life. However, major instruments developed to test wisdom appear biased, and it is unclear whether they capture balance-related tendencies. We examined whether shifting from global, de-contextualized reports to state-level reports about concrete situations provides a less biased method to assess wise reasoning (e.g., intellectual humility, recognition of uncertainty and change, consideration of the broader context at hand and perspectives of others, integration of these perspectives or compromise), which may be aligned with the notion of balancing interests. Results of a large-scale psychometric investigation (N = 4,463) revealed that the novel Situated WIse Reasoning Scale (SWIS) is reliable and appears independent of psychological biases (attribution bias, bias blind spot, self-deception, and impression management), whereas global wisdom reports are subject to such biases. Moreover, SWIS scores were positively related to indices of living well (e.g., adaptive emotion regulation, mindfulness), and balancing of cooperative and self-protective interests, goals (influence-vs.-adjustment), and causal inferences about conflict (attribution to the self-vs.-other party). In contrast, global wisdom reports were unrelated or negatively related to balance-related measures. Notably, people showed modest within-person consistency in wise reasoning across situations or over time, suggesting that a single-shot measurement may be insufficient for whole understanding of trait-level wisdom. We discuss theoretical and practical implications for research on wisdom, judgment and decision making, well-being, and prosociality. (PsycINFO Database Record
Most people can reason relatively wisely about others’ social conflicts, but often struggle to do so about their own (i.e., Solomon’s Paradox; Grossmann & Kross, 2014). We suggest that true wisdom should involve the ability to reason wisely about others’ and one’s own social conflicts. The present studies investigate the pursuit of virtue as a construct that predicts this broader capacity for wisdom. Results across two studies support prior Solomon’s Paradox findings: participants (N = 623) expressed greater wisdom (e.g., intellectual humility, adopting outsider’s perspectives) about others’ social conflicts than their own. The pursuit of virtue (e.g., pursuing personal ideals and contributing to others) moderated these results. In both studies, high virtue pursuit was associated with a greater endorsement of wise reasoning strategies for one’s own personal conflicts, reducing the discrepancy in wise reasoning between one’s own and others’ social conflicts. Implications and mechanisms are explored and discussed.
Empirical studies in psychology commonly report Cronbach's alpha as a measure of internal consistency reliability despite the fact that many methodological studies have shown that Cronbach's alpha is riddled with problems stemming from unrealistic assumptions. In many circumstances, violating these assumptions yields estimates of reliability that are too small, making measures look less reliable than they actually are. Although methodological critiques of Cronbach's alpha are being cited with increasing frequency in empirical studies, in this tutorial we discuss how the trend is not necessarily improving methodology used in the literature. That is, many studies continue to use Cronbach's alpha without regard for its assumptions or merely cite methodological papers advising against its use to rationalize unfavorable Cronbach's alpha estimates. This tutorial first provides evidence that recommendations against Cronbach’s alpha have not appreciably changed how empirical studies report reliability. Then, we summarize the drawbacks of Cronbach's alpha conceptually without relying on mathematical or simulation-based arguments so that these arguments are accessible to a broad audience. We continue by discussing several alternative measures that make less rigid assumptions which provide justifiably higher estimates of reliability compared to Cronbach’s alpha.. We conclude with empirical examples to illustrate advantages of alternative measures of reliability including omega total, Revelle’s omega total, the greatest lower bound, and Coefficient H. A detailed software appendix is also provided to help researchers implement alternative methods.
Values are a central personality construct and the importance of studying them has been well established. To encourage researchers to integrate measures of values into their studies, brief and ultrabrief instruments were developed to recapture the 10 values measured by the 40-item Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQ; Schwartz, 2003 Schwartz, S. H. (2003). A proposal for measuring value orientations across nations. In Questionnaire development report of the European Social Survey (pp. 259–319). Retrieved from http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=126&Itemid=80). Rigorous psychometric procedures based on separate derivation (N = 38,049) and evaluation (N = 29,143) samples yielded 10- and 20-item measures of values, which proved to be successful at capturing the patterns and magnitude of correlations associated with the original PVQ. These instruments should be useful to researchers who would like to incorporate a values scale into their study but do not have the space to administer a longer measure.
Organizational ambidexterity has been established as an important antecedent of organizational innovation and performance. Recently, researchers have started to argue that ambidexterity is not only essential at the organizational, but also at the individual level. Thus, to be innovative, individuals need to engage in both explorative and exploitative behaviors. However, questions remain regarding the optimal balance of explorative and exploitative behaviors and how ambidexterity can be operationalized. At the organizational level, most empirical research utilized either the difference between, or the product of, exploration and exploitation. In this article, we criticize these approaches on conceptual and methodological grounds and argue for an alternative operationalization of ambidexterity: polynomial regression and response surface methodology. In two diary studies with daily and weekly data, we demonstrate the advantages of this approach. We discuss implications for ambidexterity research and innovation practice.
Three studies were conducted to develop and validate the Big Five Inventory-2 (BFI-2), a major revision of the Big Five Inventory (BFI). Study 1 specified a hierarchical model of personality structure with 15 facet traits nested within the Big Five domains, and developed a preliminary item pool to measure this structure. Study 2 used conceptual and empirical criteria to construct the BFI-2 domain and facet scales from the preliminary item pool. Study 3 used data from 2 validation samples to evaluate the BFI-2’s measurement properties and substantive relations with self-reported and peer-reported criteria. The results of these studies indicate that the BFI-2 is a reliable and valid personality measure, and an important advance over the original BFI. Specifically, the BFI-2 introduces a robust hierarchical structure, controls for individual differences in acquiescent responding, and provides greater bandwidth, fidelity, and predictive power than the original BFI, while still retaining the original measure’s conceptual focus, brevity, and ease of understanding. The BFI-2 therefore offers valuable new opportunities for research examining the structure, assessment, development, and life outcomes of personality traits.
Purpose – The present paper addresses regulatory focus (promotion versus prevention) as a trait-level and a week-level variable linked to employee job crafting behaviors (i.e., seeking resources, seeking challenges and reducing demands). We hypothesized that while promotion focus relates positively to seeking resources and seeking challenges, prevention focus relates positively to reducing demands. Furthermore, we expected that the links between week-level regulatory focus and crafting would be stronger when the respective trait-level regulatory focus is high.
Design/Methodology/Approach – Two studies were conducted to address our aims, namely, a cross-sectional survey among 580 civil servants and a weekly survey among 81 employees of several occupations.
Findings – The hypothesized links between regulatory focus and job crafting were supported at the trait- and the week-level. Only the link between week-level prevention focus and reducing demands was stronger when trait-level prevention focus was high. Unexpectedly, seeking resources positively related to prevention focus at the week-level.
Practical implications – While prevention states may enhance reducing demands behaviors especially for prevention focused employees, organizations and managers may use promotion states to enhance seeking resources and seeking challenges behaviors among all types of employees and, thereby, shape a strategy emphasizing the promotion values of growth and development.
Originality/Value – Our findings shed light to a diverse range of employee motivational orientations (i.e., approach vs. avoidance and trait-like vs. state-like) behind job crafting and, thus, shed light to individual correlates of job crafting.
Regulatory fit theory predicts that motivation and performance are enhanced when individuals pursue goals framed in a way that fits their regulatory orientation (promotion vs. prevention focus). Our aim was to test the predictions of the theory when individuals deal with change. We expected and found in three studies that regulatory fit is beneficial only when a prevention focus is involved. In Study 1, an experiment among students, prevention- but not promotion-focused participants performed better in a changed task when it was framed in fit with their regulatory orientation. In Study 2, a survey among employees experiencing organizational changes, only the fit between individual prevention (and not promotion) focus and prevention framing of the changes by the manager was associated with higher employee adaptation to changes. In Study 3, a weekly survey among employees undergoing organizational change, again only prevention regulatory fit was associated with lower employee exhaustion and higher employee work engagement. Theoretical and practical implications of applying regulatory focus theory to organizational change are discussed.
This study examined how dissent expression related to employees’ self reports of work engagement and intention to leave. A sample of full-time employees completed a multi-instrument questionnaire. Findings indicated that dissent expression related to both employees’ work engagement and their intention to leave. In particular, dissent expressed to management and coworkers associated with work engagement, whereas dissent expressed to nonmanagement audiences associated with intention to leave. Additional analysis revealed that for managers, work engagement was primarily a function of refraining from expressing dissent.
Interpersonal curiosity (IPC) is the desire for new information about people. Fifty-one IPC items were administered to 321 participants (248 women, 73 men), along with other measures of curiosity and personality. Three factors were identified from which five-item subscales were developed that had good internal consistency: Curiosity about Emotions, Spying and Prying, and Snooping. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated the three-factor model had acceptable fit. The IPC scales correlated positively with other curiosity measures and interest in gossip, providing evidence of convergent validity. Divergent validity was demonstrated in finding the other curiosity scales correlated more highly with each other than with IPC; parallel results were found for the gossip measures.
This paper proposes a new theoretical model of curiosity that incorporates the neuroscience of “wanting” and “liking”, which are two systems hypothesised to underlie motivation and affective experience for a broad class of appetites. In developing the new model, the paper discusses empirical and theoretical limitations inherent to drive and optimal arousal theories of curiosity, and evaluates these models in relation to Litman and Jimerson's (2004) recently developed interest-deprivation (I/D) theory of curiosity. A detailed discussion of the I/D model and its relationship to the neuroscience of wanting and liking is provided, and an integrative I/D/wanting-liking model is proposed, with the aim of clarifying the complex nature of curiosity as an emotional-motivational state, and to shed light on the different ways in which acquiring knowledge can be pleasurable.
A newly-developed 20-item Tendency to Gossip Questionnaire (TGQ) is described. TGQ scores were normally distributed and showed high internal consistency (.87) for a sample of 120 students (58 female, 62 male). TGQ scores for females were significantly higher than those for males. The TGQ was validated against peer ratings using 30 kibbutz members. The TGQ's relationship to social desirability and vocational interest in people-oriented professions were studied. Four possible subscales of gossip content emerged through factor analysis: (1) physical appearance, (2) achievement, (3) social information, and (4) sublimated gossip.
Individual differences related to emotions are typically represented as emotion traits. Although important, these descriptive models often do not address the psychological dynamics that underlie the trait. Appraisal theories of emotion assume that individual differences in emotions can be traced to differences in patterns of appraisal, but this hypothesis has largely gone untested. The present research explored whether individual differences in the emotion of interest, known as trait curiosity, consist of patterns of appraisal. After completing several measures of trait curiosity, participants read complex poems (Experiment 1) or viewed simple and complex pictures (Experiment 2) and then gave ratings of interest and interest's appraisal components. The effect of trait curiosity on interest was fully mediated by appraisals. Multilevel analyses suggested that curious people differ in the amount of appraisal rather than in the kinds of appraisals relevant to interest. Appraisal theories can offer a process-oriented explanation of emotion traits that bridges state and trait emotional experience.
This article reports on the development of a short questionnaire to measure work engagement—a positive work-related state of fulfillment that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. Data were collected in 10 different countries (N = 14,521), and results indicated that the original 17-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) can be shortened to 9 items (UWES-9). The factorial validity of the UWES-9 was demonstrated using confirmatory factor analyses, and the three scale scores have good internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Furthermore, a two-factor model with a reduced Burnout factor (including exhaustion and cynicism) and an expanded Engagement factor (including vigor, dedication, absorption, and professional efficacy) fit best to the data. These results confirm that work engagement may be conceived as the positive antipode of burnout. It is concluded that the UWES-9 scores has acceptable psychometric properties and that the instrument can be used in studies on positive organizational behavior.
Over the past century, academic performance has become the gatekeeper to institutions of higher education, shaping career paths and individual life trajectories. Accordingly, much psychological research has focused on identifying predictors of academic performance, with intelligence and effort emerging as core determinants. In this article, we propose expanding on the traditional set of predictors by adding a third agency: intellectual curiosity. A series of path models based on a meta-analytically derived correlation matrix showed that (a) intelligence is the single most powerful predictor of academic performance; (b) the effects of intelligence on academic performance are not mediated by personality traits; (c) intelligence, Conscientiousness (as marker of effort), and Typical Intellectual Engagement (as marker of intellectual curiosity) are direct, correlated predictors of academic performance; and (d) the additive predictive effect of the personality traits of intellectual curiosity and effort rival that the influence of intelligence. Our results highlight that a "hungry mind" is a core determinant of individual differences in academic achievement.
© Association for Psychological Science 2011.
This two-wave (16-month lag) Belgian panel study is one of the first to test theory-driven hypotheses on the relations between job resources, work engagement, and actual turnover across time. The study focuses on three groups: stayers, workers who have obtained promotions (“promotion makers”), and external job movers. In line with the Job Demands-Resources model, we hypothesized normal cross-lagged effects of job resources on work engagement for stayers. Based on broaden-and-build theory, a reversed causal effect of work engagement on job resources was predicted for the job changers. Additionally, we examined whether the changes in the job change groups matched the refuge hypothesis (that less engaged workers change to jobs providing more resources) or the positive gain hypothesis (that engaged workers get promoted to jobs having even more resources). The results partially supported our hypotheses. We found that low work engagement, low job autonomy, and low departmental resources predicted actual transfer to another company. Furthermore, for stayers we found positive effects of job autonomy on work engagement, but also reversed causal effects. For external movers and promotion makers the expected reversed causal effects of work engagement were found. The across time mean changes support the positive gain hypothesis for promotion makers, and the refuge hypothesis for external movers.
An imbalance exists between the role of curiosity as a motivational force in nearly all human endeavors and the lack of scientific attention given to the topic. In recent years, however, there has been a proliferation of concepts that capture the essence of curiosity-recognizing, seeking out, and showing a preference for the new. In this chapter, we combine this work to address the nature of curiosity, where it fits in the larger scheme of positive emotions, the advantages of being curious in social relationships, links between curiosity and elements of well-being, and how it has been used in interventions to improve people's quality of life. Our emphasis is on methodologically sophisticated findings that show how curiosity operates in the laboratory and everyday life, and how, under certain conditions, curiosity can be a profound source of strength or a liability. People who are regularly curious and willing to embrace the novelty, uncertainty, and challenges that are inevitable as we navigate the shoals of everyday life are at an advantage in creating a fulfilling existence compared with their less curious peers. Our brief review is designed to bring further attention to this neglected, underappreciated, human universal.
Conversation is a uniquely human phenomenon. Analyses of freely forming conversations indicate that approximately two thirds of conversation time is devoted to social topics, most of which can be given the generic label gossip. This article first explores the origins of gossip as a mechanism for bonding social groups, tracing these origins back to social grooming among primates. It then asks why social gossip in this sense should form so important a component of human interaction and presents evidence to suggest that, aside from servicing social networks, a key function may be related explicitly to controlling free riders. Finally, the author reviews briefly the role of social cognition in facilitating conversations of this kind. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Research on curiosity has undergone 2 waves of intense activity. The 1st, in the 1960s, focused mainly on curiosity's psychological underpinnings. The 2nd, in the 1970s and 1980s, was characterized by attempts to measure curiosity and assess its dimensionality. This article reviews these contributions with a concentration on the 1st wave. It is argued that theoretical accounts of curiosity proposed during the 1st period fell short in 2 areas: They did not offer an adequate explanation for why people voluntarily seek out curiosity, and they failed to delineate situational determinants of curiosity. Furthermore, these accounts did not draw attention to, and thus did not explain, certain salient characteristics of curiosity: its intensity, transience, association with impulsivity, and tendency to disappoint when satisfied. A new account of curiosity is offered that attempts to address these shortcomings. The new account interprets curiosity as a form of cognitively induced deprivation that arises from the perception of a gap in knowledge or understanding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Curiosity, a personality trait underlying behavioral tendencies related to knowledge acquisition, learning, and thinking, can be expected to be of high relevance in the world of work. There is, however, to date no work-related curiosity measure. The present article reports results regarding the development and validation of the new 10-item Work-Related Curiosity Scale. Based on two studies, the measure had a one-factor solution, acceptable internal consistency, and expected construct validity. In Study 2, incremental criterion-re-lated validities were found over and above five general curiosity scales (ΔR 2 between .12 and .15), which is in line with the frame-of-reference approach underlying the development of the scale. Interestingly, the lack of evidence for criterion-related validity in Study 1 indicates that these results do not generalize across positions.
Observational studies of human conversations in relaxed social settings suggest that these consist predominantly of exchanges
of social information (mostly concerning personal relationships and experiences). Most of these exchanges involve information
about the speaker or third parties, and very few involve critical comments or the soliciting or giving of advice. Although
a policing function may still be important (e.g., for controlling social cheats), it seems that this does not often involve
overt criticism of other individuals’ behavior. The few significant differences between the sexes in the proportion of conversation
time devoted to particular topics are interpreted as reflecting females’ concerns with networking and males’ concerns with
self-display in what amount to a conventional mating lek.
The five-dimensional curiosity construct, recently advanced by Kashdan and his colleagues (2018a), was examined using open-ended and Likert type questionnaires to further understand the nomological network and correlates of the five curiosity dimensions. The nature of each dimension (Joyous Exploration, Deprivation Sensitivity, Stress Tolerance, Social curiosity, and Thrill-Seeking) and of profiles based on those dimensions were examined as well as their relationships with value-driven actions (Personal Well-being, Moral values, Religious values, Social Ideology, and Environment.) Results of qualitative and quantitative analyses shed light on the role of positive uncertainty (stress tolerance) and of thrill-seeking in shaping epistemic and social curiosity; on authentic descriptions of reactions to curiosity-related objects or situations; on types of questions of interest that are more likely to be posed by curious people, and on values that drive their actions. The findings were discussed from an educative perspective.
Since the origins of psychology, curiosity has occupied a pivotal position in the study of motivation, emotion, and cognition; and disciplines as far-ranging as biology, economics, robotics, and leadership. Theorists have disagreed about the basic tenets of curiosity; some researchers contend that the rewards arise when resolving ambiguity and uncertainty whereas others argue that being curious is an intrinsically pleasurable experience. Three studies were conducted to consolidate competing theories and isolated bodies of research. Using data from a community survey of 508 adults (Study 1), 403 adults on MTurk (Study 2), and a nationally representative household survey of 3,000 adults (Study 3), we found evidence for five distinct factors: Joyous Exploration, Deprivation Sensitivity, Stress Tolerance, Social Curiosity, and Thrill Seeking - forming The Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale (5DC). Each factor had substantive relations with a battery of personality, emotion, and well-being measures. Taking advantage of this multidimensional model, we found evidence for four distinct types of curious people in Study 3 referred to as The Fascinated (28% of sample), Problem Solvers (28%), Empathizers (25%), and Avoiders (19%). Subgroups differed in their passionate interests, areas of expertise, consumer behavior, and social media use; challenging an assumption that there is a homogenous population to be discriminated on a single dimension from incurious to very curious. With greater bandwidth and predictive power, the 5DC offers new opportunities for research on origins, consequences, life outcomes, and intervention strategies to enhance curiosity.
The investment theory of adult intelligence posits that individual differences in knowledge attainment result from people’s differences in cognitive ability and their propensity to apply and invest that ability, which is referred to as investment personality traits. Here, we differentiated intellectual (i.e., intellectual curiosity) and non-intellectual investment (i.e., openness to experience), and we tested their respective predictive validity for knowledge attainment in four independent lab-based studies (overall N = 649). Openness to experience was positively associated with knowledge attainment across all four studies, and this effect was by and large independent of cognitive ability. By contrast, intellectual curiosity was not related to knowledge attainment. The findings suggest that openness to experience, rather than intellectual curiosity, is the investment personality trait that broadly benefits learning and adult intelligence.
Four studies examined intellectual humility—the degree to which people recognize that their beliefs might be wrong. Using a new Intellectual Humility (IH) Scale, Study 1 showed that intellectual humility was associated with variables related to openness, curiosity, tolerance of ambiguity, and low dogmatism. Study 2 revealed that participants high in intellectual humility were less certain that their beliefs about religion were correct and judged people less on the basis of their religious opinions. In Study 3, participants high in intellectual humility were less inclined to think that politicians who changed their attitudes were “flip-flopping,” and Study 4 showed that people high in intellectual humility were more attuned to the strength of persuasive arguments than those who were low. In addition to extending our understanding of intellectual humility, this research demonstrates that the IH Scale is a valid measure of the degree to which people recognize that their beliefs are fallible.
Sure, and longitudinal studies in the social and behavioral sciences generally contain missing data. Mean and covariance structure models play an important role in analyzing such data. Two promising methods for dealing with missing data are a direct I,maximum-likelihood and a two-stage approach based on the unstructured mean and covariance estimates obtained by the EM-algorithm. Typical assumptions under these two methods are ignorable nonresponse and normality of data. However, data sets in social and behavioral sciences are seldom normal. and experience with these procedures indicates that normal theory based methods for nonnormal data very often lead to incorrect model evaluations. By dropping the normal distribution assumption, we develop more accurate procedures for model inference. Based on the theory of generalized estimating equations, a way to obtain consistent standard errors of the two-stage estimates is given. The asymptotic efficiencies of different estimators are compared under various assumptions. Ne also propose a minimum chi-square approach and show that the estimator obtained by this approach is asymptotically at least as efficient as the two likelihood-based estimators for either normal or nonnormal darn. The major contribution of this paper is that for each estimator, we give a test statistic whose asymptotic distribution is chi-square as long as the underlying sampling distribution enjoys finite fourth-order moments. Ne also give a characterization for each of the two likelihood ratio rest statistics,when the underlying distribution is nonnormal. Modifications to the likelihood ratio statistics are also Riven. Our working assumption is that the missing data mechanism is missing comptetely at random. examples and Monte Carlo studies indicate that, for commonly encountered nonnormal distributions, the procedures developed in this paper are quite reliable even for samples with missing data that ar-e missing at random.
The present study integrated a number of streams of research on the antecedents of innovation to develop and test a model of individual innovative behavior. Hypothesizing that leadership, individual problem-solving style, and work group relations affect innovative behavior directly and indirectly through their influence on perceptions of the climate for innovation, we used structural equation analysis to test the parameters of the proposed model simultaneously and also explored the moderating effect of task characteristics. The model explained approximately 37 percent of the variance in innovative behavior. Tasktype moderated the relationship between leader role expectations and innovative behavior.
How does it feel to be curious? We reasoned that there are two sides to curiosity: not knowing something (i.e. information-gap) and almost knowing something (i.e. anticipation of resolution). In three experiments, we showed that time affects the relative impact of these two components: When people did not expect to close their information-gap soon (long time-to-resolution) not knowing affected the subjective experience of curiosity more strongly than when they expected to close their information-gap quickly (short time-to-resolution). As such, people experienced less positive affect, more discomfort, and more annoyance with lack of information in a long than a short time-to-resolution situation. Moreover, when time in the long time-to-resolution setting passed, the anticipation of the resolution became stronger, positive affect increased, and discomfort and annoyance with lack of information decreased. Time is thus a key factor in the experience of curiosity.
A series of studies was conducted to create the 22-item Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale on the basis of theoretical descriptions of intellectual humility, expert reviews, pilot studies, and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. The scale measures 4 distinct but intercorrelated aspects of intellectual humility, including independence of intellect and ego, openness to revising one's viewpoint, respect for others' viewpoints, and lack of intellectual overconfidence. Internal consistency and test-retest analyses provided reliable scale and subscale scores within numerous independent samples. Validation data were obtained from multiple, independent samples, supporting appropriate levels of convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. The analyses suggest that the scale has utility as a self-report measure for future research.
Curiosity is a basic element of our cognition, but its biological function, mechanisms, and neural underpinning remain poorly understood. It is nonetheless a motivator for learning, influential in decision-making, and crucial for healthy development. One factor limiting our understanding of it is the lack of a widely agreed upon delineation of what is and is not curiosity. Another factor is the dearth of standardized laboratory tasks that manipulate curiosity in the lab. Despite these barriers, recent years have seen a major growth of interest in both the neuroscience and psychology of curiosity. In this Perspective, we advocate for the importance of the field, provide a selective overview of its current state, and describe tasks that are used to study curiosity and information-seeking. We propose that, rather than worry about defining curiosity, it is more helpful to consider the motivations for information-seeking behavior and to study it in its ethological context.
Psychological need constructs have received increased attention within self-determination theory research. Unfortunately, the most widely used need-satisfaction measure, the Basic Psychological Needs Scale (BPNS; Gagné in Motiv Emot 27:199–223, 2003), has been found to be problematic (Johnston and Finney in Contemp Educ Psychol 35:280–296, 2010). In the current study, we formally describe an alternate measure, the Balanced Measure of Psychological Needs (BMPN). We explore the factor structure of student responses to both the BPNS and the BMPN, followed by an empirical comparison of the BPNS to the BMPN as predictors of relevant outcomes. For both scales, we tested a model specifying three latent need factors (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) and two latent method factors (satisfaction and dissatisfaction). By specifying and comparing a series of nested confirmatory factor analytic models, we examine the theoretical structure of the need satisfaction variables and produce evidence for convergent and discriminant validity of the posited constructs. The results of our examination suggest that the three need variables should not be combined into one general need factor and may have separate satisfaction and dissatisfaction dimensions. Our model comparisons also suggest the BMPN may be an improved instrument for SDT researchers.
We investigated the relationship between various character strengths and life satisfaction among 5,299 adults from three Internet samples using the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths. Consistently and robustly associated with life satisfaction were hope, zest, gratitude, love, and curiosity. Only weakly associated with life satisfaction, in contrast, were modesty and the intellectual strengths of appreciation of beauty, creativity, judgment, and love of learning. In general, the relationship between character strengths and life satisfaction was monotonic, indicating that excess on any one character strength does not diminish life satisfaction.
Minority dissent disrupts stability but also stimulates individual creativity, the quality of group decision making, and organizational adaptiveness. It is argued that we know little about antecedents of minority dissent in organizations. To fill this void, managers (N= 108) were asked about their willingness to take up a minority position within their team or work unit. Results showed that willingness to dissent was predicted by the manager's extraversion, as well as by group factors, including possibility for communication, goal clarity, and past neglect of disagreements. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Past research suggests that minority dissent in teams may foster team innovations. It is hypothesized, however, that minority dissent would predict team innovations only when teams have high levels of reflexivity - the tendency to overtly reflect upon the group's objectives, strategies, and processes and adapt them to current or anticipated circumstances. This hypothesis was tested in a field study involving a heterogeneous sample of 32 organizational teams performing complex, ill-defined tasks. Results showed more innovation and greater team effectiveness under high rather than low levels of minority dissent, but only when there was a high level of team reflexivity. Avenues for future research are discussed.
One of the most important decisions that can be made in the use of factor analysis is the number of factors to retain. Numerous studies have consistently shown that Horn's parallel analysis is the most nearly accurate methodology for determining the number of factors to retain in an exploratory factor analysis. Although Horn's procedure is relatively accurate, it still tends to error in the direction of indicating the retention of one or two more factors than is actually warranted or of retaining poorly defined factors. A modification of Horn's parallel analysis based on Monte Carlo simulation of the null distributions of the eigenvalues generated from a population correlation identity matrix is introduced. This modification allows identification of any desired upper 1 - a percentile, such as the 95th percentile of this set of distributions. The 1 - ax percentile then can be used to determine whether an eigenvalue is larger than what could be expected by chance. Horn based his original procedure on the average eigenvalues derived from this set of distributions. The modified procedure reduces the tendency of the parallel analysis methodology to overextract. An example is provided that demonstrates this capability. A demonstration is also given that indicates that the parallel analysis procedure and its modification are insensitive to the distributional characteristics of the data used to generate the eigenvalue distributions.
The general trend toward more democratic forms of organizing highlights the necessity to consider how employees engage their organizations in participative environments. Assessing employee dissent represents one means of understanding the dialogue between employee and employer. The purpose of this study was to develop a measure for operationalizing how employees verbally express their contradictory opinions and disagreements about organizational phenomena. The Organizational Dissent Scale (ODS) was developed and tested in a series of studies designed to generate evidence of validity and reliability for the measure. Results indicate that the scale measures how employees express dissent along three dimensions: articulated, antagonistic (latent), and displaced. Results also indicate that initial evidence of validity and reliability exists for the scale.
Recent conceptualizations of curiosity have identified two underlying factors that together represent trait curiosity: exploration (the disposition to seek out novel/challenging situations) and absorption (the disposition to become fully engaged in these interesting situations) (Kashdan, Rose, & Fincham, 2004). These factors have been proposed to broaden the thought–action repertoire by promoting interest in novel/challenging situations and to incrementally build knowledge and well-being in a manner consistent with the Broaden-and-Build Theory (Fredrickson, B. L., 1998). This article reports findings from a study which examined associations between the exploration and absorption components of curiosity and continuous and categorical indices of well-being. Replicating and extending previous findings, the exploration (more so than absorption) component of curiosity exhibited moderate positive associations with measures of well-being. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
The central thesis of this article is that all gossip involves social comparison. Research on social comparison is applied toward understanding motivations for gossip. In addition, the authors address why gossip tends to be negative and make predictions about factors that trigger especially negative talk about others. Factors such as need for moral information, powerlessness, formation and maintenance of in-groups and out-groups, and situations that bring on perceptions of injustice or feelings of jealousy, envy, and resentment all contribute to malicious gossip. Finally, the morality of gossip is considered, especially as it relates to the misuse or overuse of social comparison. Gossip is purposeful and, perhaps, necessary for healthy social functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The present paper provides a conceptual and empirical examination regarding the relevance of the construct curiosity for work-related outcomes. Based on a review and integration of the literature regarding the construct itself, the construct is conceptually linked with performance in the work context. Using a confirmatory research strategy, a sample (N = 320) with requirements that reflected this conceptual link was chosen. Results from a concurrent validation study confirmed the hypothesis regarding the significance of curiosity for job performance (r = .34). Furthermore, incremental validity of curiosity above twelve cognitive and non-cognitive predictors for job performance suggest that curiosity captures variance in the criterion that is not explained by predictors traditionally used in organizational psychology. It is concluded that curiosity is an important variable for the prediction and explanation of work-related behavior. Furthermore, given the dramatic changes in the world of work, the importance is likely to raise, rather than to decline, which has important implications for organizational theories and applied purposes, like personnel selection.
Despite their interest in why people do what they do, psychologists typically overlook interest itself as a facet of human motivation and emotion. In recent years, however, researchers from diverse areas of psychology have turned their attention to the role of interest in learning, motivation, and development. This article reviews the emerging body of work on the psychology of interest, with an emphasis on what contemporary emotion research has learned about the subject. After considering four central questions—Is interest like other emotions? What functions does interest serve? What makes something interesting? Is interest merely another label for happiness?—the article considers unanswered questions and fruitful applications. Given interest's central role in cultivating knowledge and expertise, psychologists should apply research on interest to practical problems of learning, education, and motivation.
Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a relatively new website that contains the major elements required to conduct research: an integrated participant compensation system; a large participant pool; and a streamlined process of study design, participant recruitment, and data collection. In this article, we describe and evaluate the potential contributions of MTurk to psychology and other social sciences. Findings indicate that (a) MTurk participants are slightly more demographically diverse than are standard Internet samples and are significantly more diverse than typical American college samples; (b) participation is affected by compensation rate and task length, but participants can still be recruited rapidly and inexpensively; (c) realistic compensation rates do not affect data quality; and (d) the data obtained are at least as reliable as those obtained via traditional methods. Overall, MTurk can be used to obtain high-quality data inexpensively and rapidly.
© The Author(s) 2011.
This study examined curiosity as a mechanism for achieving and maintaining high levels of well-being and meaning in life.
Of primary interest was whether people high in trait curiosity derive greater well-being on days when they are more curious.
We also tested whether trait and daily curiosity led to greater, sustainable well-being. Predictions were tested using trait
measures and 21 daily diary reports from 97 college students. We found that on days when they are more curious, people high
in trait curiosity reported more frequent growth-oriented behaviors, and greater presence of meaning, search for meaning,
and life satisfaction. Greater trait curiosity and greater curiosity on a given day also predicted greater persistence of
meaning in life from one day into the next. People with greater trait curiosity reported more frequent hedonistic events but
they were associated with less pleasure compared to the experiences of people with less trait curiosity. The benefits of hedonistic
events did not last beyond the day of their occurrence. As evidence of construct specificity, curiosity effects were not attributable
to Big Five personality traits or daily positive or negative mood. Our results provide support for curiosity as an ingredient
in the development of well-being and meaning in life. The pattern of findings casts doubt on some distinctions drawn between
eudaimonia and hedonic well-being traditions.
People who are open and curious orient their lives around an appreciation of novelty and a strong urge to explore, discover, and grow. Researchers have recently shown that being an open, curious person is linked to healthy social outcomes.
To better understand the benefits (and liabilities) of being a curious person, we used a multimethod design of social behavior to assess the perspectives of multiple informants (including self, friends, and parents) and behavior coded from direct observations in unstructured social interactions.
We found an impressive degree of convergence among self, friend, and parent reports of curiosity, and observer-rated behavioral correlates of curiosity. A curious personality was linked to a wide range of adaptive behaviors, including tolerance of anxiety and uncertainty, positive emotional expressiveness, initiation of humor and playfulness, unconventional thinking, and a nondefensive, noncritical attitude.
This characterization of curious people provides insights into mechanisms underlying associated healthy social outcomes.