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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Daily television exposure, parent conversation
during shared television viewing and
socioeconomic status: Associations with
curiosity at kindergarten
Prachi E. ShahID
1,2
*, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek
3
, Todd B. Kashdan
4
, Kristen Harrison
5
,
Katherine Rosenblum
2
, Heidi M. WeeksID
6
, Priya Singh
7
, Niko Kaciroti
8
1Division of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, University of Michigan Medical
School, Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America, 2Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical
School, Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America, 3Department of Psychology, Temple University,
Philadelphia, PA, United States of America, 4Department of Psychology and Center for the Advancement of
Well-Being, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, United States of America, 5Department of
Communication and Media, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States of America, 6Department of
Nutritional Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, United States of
America, 7Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati Medical School, Cincinnati, OH, United States
of America, 8Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI,
United States of America
*prachis@umich.edu
Abstract
Objective
To examine the main and interactive effects of the amount of daily television exposure and
frequency of parent conversation during shared television viewing on parent ratings of curi-
osity at kindergarten, and to test for moderation by socioeconomic status (SES).
Study design
Sample included 5100 children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort.
Hours of daily television exposure and frequency of parent screen-time conversation were
assessed from a parent interview at preschool, and the outcome of early childhood curiosity
was derived from a child behavior questionnaire at kindergarten. Multivariate linear regres-
sion examined the main and interactive effects of television exposure and parent screen-
time conversation on kindergarten curiosity and tested for moderation by SES.
Results
In adjusted models, greater number of hours of daily television viewing at preschool was
associated with lower curiosity at kindergarten (B = -0.14, p = .008). More frequent parent
conversation during shared screen-time was associated with higher parent-reported curios-
ity at kindergarten with evidence of moderation by SES. The magnitude of association
between frequency of parent conversation during television viewing and curiosity was
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OPEN ACCESS
Citation: Shah PE, Hirsh-Pasek K, Kashdan TB,
Harrison K, Rosenblum K, Weeks HM, et al. (2021)
Daily television exposure, parent conversation
during shared television viewing and
socioeconomic status: Associations with curiosity
at kindergarten. PLoS ONE 16(10): e0258572.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258572
Editor: Susan Engel, Williams College, UNITED
STATES
Received: January 31, 2020
Accepted: September 30, 2021
Published: October 28, 2021
Copyright: ©2021 Shah et al. This is an open
access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original
author and source are credited.
Data Availability Statement: Data cannot be
shared publicly because the data were obtained
from a restricted use dataset. Data are available
from the Institute of Educational Statistics, from
the US Department of Education’s National Center
for Education Statistics (NCES) (contact via https://
nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/licenses.asp) for
researchers who meet the criteria for access to
confidential data. To elaborate, this manuscript
utilizes restricted data from the Early Childhood
Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). The
greater for children from low SES environments, compared to children from high SES envi-
ronments: (SES median): B = 0.29, p <.001; (SES >median): B = 0.11, p <.001.
Conclusions
Higher curiosity at kindergarten was associated with greater frequency of parent conversa-
tion during shared television viewing, with a greater magnitude of association in low-SES
families. While the study could not include measures of television program content, digital
media use and non-screen time conversation, our results suggest the importance of parent
conversation to promote early childhood curiosity, especially for children with socioeco-
nomic disadvantage.
Introduction
Curiosity, an important foundation for scientific innovation [1], is characterized by the drive
to seek out new information [2], desire to explore [3], and joy in learning [4,5]. Higher curios-
ity has been associated with numerous adaptive outcomes in childhood including more robust
word acquisition [6], enhanced learning and exploration [7] and higher academic achievement
[8,9], highlighting the potential importance of fostering curiosity from an early age. Our previ-
ous work found a positive association between higher curiosity and higher academic achieve-
ment, with a greater magnitude of benefit for children with socioeconomic disadvantage [10],
raising the possibility that promoting curiosity in young children may be one way to mitigate
the achievement gap associated with poverty [11]. To foster curiosity in early childhood, it is
necessary to consider the modifiable contexts that may promote or inhibit its expression.
One potential modifiable factor associated with differences in early childhood outcomes is
the amount of daily television exposure. While there is an increasing interest in the role of digi-
tal media exposure on child development, televisions are in 98% of all homes, and television
viewing remains the dominant screen activity of young children, accounting for 72% of all
screen time [12], making television exposure a relevant developmental context in young chil-
dren. Children are exposed to an average of 1–4 hours of television per day [13,14], with
higher exposure in children who are economically disadvantaged [15,16]. In previous screen-
time research with infants, toddlers and preschoolers, more television exposure has been asso-
ciated with impaired self- regulation [17,18], lower language outcomes [19,20], and lower
cognitive development [21,22], however, association with curiosity has not been examined,
and is a gap in the literature. Screen media exposure, including television, can displace explor-
atory activities such as play and parent-child interactions [23] that are thought to be necessary
for the cultivation of curiosity [24]. We therefore sought to test the hypothesis that higher daily
television exposure would be associated with lower curiosity (Hypothesis 1). We also consid-
ered that the association between the amount of television exposure on early childhood curios-
ity may be attenuated in children with higher SES, who may have other resources to foster
curiosity, compared with low SES children. Therefore, we sought to test whether the associa-
tion between higher daily television exposure and early childhood curiosity was moderated by
SES, with a greater magnitude of effect seen in low SES /under-resourced families (Hypothesis
2).
In addition, because development unfolds through reciprocal interactions between children
and their parents, the quality of early dyadic experiences may also play a role in fostering curi-
osity. Previous work has demonstrated the benefits of parent conversation during shared
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ECLS-B is a nationally representative, population-
based longitudinal study sponsored by the Institute
of Educational Statistics, from the US Department
of Education’s National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES). While the ECLS-B is a publicly
available dataset, the data used for this analysis
comes from the restricted ECLS-B dataset, which
requires special access and permission from
NCES, prior to accessing the data. The PI (senior
author (PES)) had to enter into a data-use
agreement with the Institute for Educational
Statistics / NCES prior to receiving access for the
restricted use data. Per the requirements of the
NCES, the data cannot be freely shared with other
investigators, and interested investigators must
enter into a data use agreement with the NCES
prior to accessing the restricted-use data from the
Institution for Educational Statistics. Due to NCES’s
confidentiality legislation, ECLS-B case-level data
are available only to qualified researchers who are
granted a restricted-use data license from NCES.
Information regarding how to obtain a restricted-
data license for the ECLS-B can be found at https://
nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/licenses.asp.
Funding: This work was supported by grants from
the University of Michigan, the Zero to Three
Academy of Fellows, and NICHD (K08HD078506)
to PES, and from the Zero to Three Academy of
Fellows to KR. Study sponsors had no role in the
study design; the collection, analysis, and
interpretation of data; the writing of the report; or
the decision to submit the manuscript for
publication.
Competing interests: The authors have declared
that no competing interests exist.
television viewing on language development, with more frequent conversation moderating the
adverse impact of heavy television exposure [25]. Previous research has also demonstrated that
parent-child conversation facilitates children’s thinking, learning and exploration (i.e., behav-
ioral indicators of curiosity) through pedagogical exchanges [26]. As such, we hypothesized
that more frequent parent conversation during shared television viewing may be associated
with higher curiosity (Hypothesis 3a) and may moderate the association between higher televi-
sion exposure and curiosity (Hypothesis 3b). Furthermore, because the amount and quality of
language that young children hear also varies by socioeconomic status [27], (e.g., the 30-mil-
lion-word-gap) [28,29], we theorized that there may be a similar “curiosity gap” among low
income children who are exposed to less conversation. We hypothesized that, consistent with a
cumulative risk model [30], socioeconomic disadvantage in combination with less frequent
parental conversation may confer an added risk for lower curiosity, with greatest effects seen
in children from low SES families (Hypothesis 4). The overarching aim of this work was to
identify modifiable factors in the early caregiving environment (e.g., amount of early television
viewing, frequency of parent conversation) which may be important for the promotion of
early childhood curiosity, and to examine whether these factors were associated with differen-
tial effects in children from under-resourced families. Results from this work will help inform
anticipatory guidance to promote early childhood curiosity in at risk populations.
Materials and methods
Study design and sample
Data were drawn from the restricted data of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth
Cohort (ECLS-B), a nationally representative, population-based longitudinal study sponsored
by the US Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). The
ECLS-B is based on a nationally representative probability sample of children born in the
United States in 2001. Data were collected from children and their parents at age 9 months,
24-months, preschool and kindergarten timepoints, and included parent interviews, and direct
and indirect child assessments across multiple settings [31]. Our sample excluded children
with congenital and chromosomal abnormalities, and included children born at 22–41 weeks
gestation who had kindergarten behavioral data from which we could derive a measure of curi-
osity. Our study utilized data from birth, 24-months, preschool and kindergarten timepoints,
with a final sample of 5100 children. This study was considered exempt by the Institutional
Review Board because it involved the use of a publicly available dataset with de-identified par-
ticipants who could not be linked to the data.
Measures
Outcomes. Curiosity. Because the ECLS-B did not have a measure to examine curiosity,
we derived a measure of curiosity from an existing assessment of child behavior available in
the dataset, which included questions from the Preschool and Kindergarten Behavioral Scales
Second Edition (PKBS-2) and Social Skills Rating System (SSRS). While we were limited by
the questions that were available the parent PKBS-2 questionnaire at the kindergarten time-
point, we drew from previous theoretical work and behavioral descriptions of curiosity in
young children [32–38] to select question items that most closely aligned with characteristics
of curiosity. While there is no single definition of curiosity [33], there are certain behavioral
characteristics of curiosity that are widely accepted, including, (1) the thirst for knowledge,and
the drive to understand what one does not know [34]; (2) an exploratory drive to seek novelty
[35]; (3) an openness to new experiences [36]; and, in young children, (4) innovation in explor-
atory play [37,38]. Four question items from the PKBS-2 which aligned with these
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characteristics of curiosity were chosen for our “curiosity factor.” The individual question
items included (1) shows eagerness to learn new things (i.e., thirst for knowledge); (2) likes to
try new things (i.e., drive for novelty); (3) easily adjusts to a new situation (i.e., openness to new
experiences); and (4) shows imagination in work and play (i.e., innovation in exploratory play).
At the kindergarten timepoint, parents were asked to report the frequency of behaviors
observed in the previous 3 months on a 5-point Likert scale (1, never to 5, very often). Items
were reverse coded as appropriate such that higher scores indicated more positive behaviors. A
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to assure reliability and to calculate the
appropriate loading values for deriving our curiosity factor. Standardized scoring of the curios-
ity factor was conducted, and good internal consistency was demonstrated (α= 0.70, M = 0.07,
SD = 1.2) [10]. Individual question items, loading coefficients, and model fit indices for our
curiosity factor are shown in S3 Appendix.
Predictors. Hours of television viewing. Hours of television viewing at preschool were
determined from a parent questionnaire at the preschool timepoint. Parents were asked
“. . .about how many hours of television does [your child] watch at home per day,” with
responses ranging from 0–24 hours. Respondents who answered “N/A” to this question were
not included in the analysis. Because most children (96%) reportedly watched 6 hours or fewer
of television per day, the hours of daily television exposure were capped at 6+ hours, reducing
the influence of a few statistical outliers.
Parent conversation during shared television viewing. Parent conversation during television
viewing was determined from a parent questionnaire at the preschool timepoint. Parents were
asked, “In a typical week,when your family watches TV together,how often do you or another
family member talk with [your child] about the TV programs?” Responses were coded categori-
cally as 1 = never, 2 = hardly ever, 3 = sometimes, or 4 = often. Parents were not asked to
report on the amount of time a child watched television without adults, thus we were unable to
control for the amount of time children watched television without adult co-viewing.
Relatedly, there was also no measure of overall (non-television) parental language for the
entire sample. As such, we were unable to control for non-screen time parental language. To
address this limitation, using a subsample of 500 parent-child dyads with available data on a
structured reading task, we examined the association between parent conversation during TV
viewing and parent conversation during the reading task. We found a positive association for
the frequency of television-related parent conversation and elaborative parent language during
the reading task characterized by use of open-ended questions (p = .008) and relating the book
to the child’s experience (p = .03). Based on this subsample analysis, we considered that televi-
sion-related parent conversation may also reflect the quality of the language environment in
the home. For the purpose of this study, we considered the amount of parent conversation
during shared television viewing to serve as a proxy for the amount of language in the caregiv-
ing environment.
Covariates. In our primary analyses, we included sociodemographic variables that might
be associated with the amount of television viewing and curiosity. Specifically, we controlled
for maternal age, race/ethnicity, marital status (married/unmarried), maternal education
(<high school; high school graduate; >high school), and poverty (<185% federal poverty
line; 185% federal poverty line). The latter two variables were integrated into a composite
measure of household socioeconomic status (SES) at kindergarten [31]. We also controlled for
child sex, child age, the type of childcare/preschool experience (no non-parental care; relative/
nonrelative home-based care; center-based care), and average number of hours of childcare/
center-based care per day. Because lower developmental skills [39] and inability to delay grati-
fication [18] have been associated with increased television exposure, additional covariates
included a measure of infant development at 24-months from the Bayley Short-Form Research
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Edition, and parent-report of delay of gratification at 24-months (“My child is able to wait”
dichotomized as “no/yes”). Of note, there was no measure of the content of television pro-
gramming available in the dataset (i.e., educational programming vs. entertainment), so we
were not able to control for television content in our analyses.
Statistical analyses
All analyses were conducted using SAS 9.4 [40] (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). Maternal and
child characteristics were examined using descriptive statistics. Multivariate linear regression
utilizing the SURVEYREG (SAS) procedure allowed for tests of associations between hours of
daily television viewing, frequency of parent conversation during shared television viewing
and kindergarten curiosity in linear and non-linear (quadratic) models, with minimal differ-
ences between the linear and quadratic models. We included covariates related to television
viewing, parent conversation, and curiosity to adjust for theoretically justified confounds. For
our primary analyses, in adjusted models, we tested the association between the hours of televi-
sion viewing and curiosity at kindergarten (Hypothesis 1), and whether the association
between hours of television viewing and curiosity was moderated by SES (Hypothesis 2). We
examined whether the amount of parent conversation during shared television viewing at pre-
school was associated with early childhood curiosity (Hypothesis 3a), and whether the amount
of parent conversation moderated the association between the amount of television viewing
and early childhood curiosity (Hypothesis 3b). Finally, we examined whether the association
between parent conversation during television viewing and curiosity at kindergarten was mod-
erated by SES (i.e., our test of a cumulative risk hypothesis) (Hypothesis 4). In all our modera-
tion analyses, we included the interaction term in the final step of the multivariate regression
models. When the interaction was statistically significant (p <.05), we performed a stratified
analysis of the association between the predictor and curiosity, adjusting for covariates.
Because of the complex sample design, sample weights and the Jackknife method [41] were
used to account for stratification, clustering and unit non-response, thereby allowing the
weighted results to be generalized to the population of U.S. children born in 2001. In accord
with the NCES requirements for ECLS-B data use, reported numbers were rounded to the
nearest 50.
Results
Sample characteristics
Of the 6350 children who had behavioral (curiosity) data at kindergarten, 5100 children had
television-viewing data at preschool and all covariates, which served as our analytic sample.
The 5100 children in our final sample did not differ from the 1250 children who were excluded
(due to missing data) on most demographic characteristics. However, children who were
excluded were more likely to be non-White, have lower SES, have higher 24-month develop-
ment, watched fewer hours/day of television, and attended childcare/preschool more hours
per day. At the preschool timepoint, parents reported that children watched an average of 2.5
hours of television per day, and almost half of parents (49.8%) reported talking with their chil-
dren “often” when viewing television together. After applying sample weights, the maternal
and child characteristics were generalizable to the US population in 2001. The sample charac-
teristics for the weighted sample are shown in Table 1. Descriptive characteristics of the
amount of television viewing and parent conversation during shared television viewing are
shown in Table 2.
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Tests of association between hours of daily television viewing and child
curiosity at kindergarten (Hypothesis 1), moderation by SES (Hypothesis
2), and main and moderating effects of parent conversation during shared
television viewing (Hypotheses 3a and 3b)
In adjusted models, higher daily television viewing at preschool was associated with lower curi-
osity at kindergarten (B = -0.14, p = .008) (Hypothesis 1, S1 Appendix). The association
between the hours of daily television viewing at preschool and kindergarten curiosity was not
moderated by SES (p = .22) (Hypothesis 2). In adjusted models, we also found that more fre-
quent parent screen-time conversation was associated with higher curiosity at kindergarten (p
<.001), (Hypothesis 3a, S1 Appendix), but that more frequent parent conversation did not
moderate the association between the amount of television exposure and early childhood curi-
osity (p = .23) (Hypothesis 3b).
Table 1. Maternal and child characteristics.
Maternal Characteristics Mean, SD or Weighted %
Age (years) 27.4, 4.6
Race/ethnicity
White/Non-Hispanic 57.2%
Black/Non-Hispanic 14.5%
Hispanic 22.9%
Asian 2.9%
Other 2.4%
Marital Status
Married 68.0%
Unmarried 32.0%
Socioeconomic indicators calculated from measures of education and income at Kindergarten:
Maternal Education
Less than high school 17.8%
High school graduate 29.5%
>High School 52.8%
Below poverty threshold (<185% federal poverty line) 44.2%
At or above poverty threshold (185% federal poverty line) 55.8%
Child Characteristics Mean, SD, or Weighted %
Gender
Male 50.5%
Female 49.5%
Preschool-age Child Care/Preschool Experience
Parental care only (no childcare) 19.9%
Relative/non-relative care 21.4%
Center based care (Preschool or Head Start) 58.7%
Hours per day of Child-care or Preschool (hours) 4.5, 5.9
Age at Preschool (months) 52.5 (5.5)
Age at Kindergarten (months) 68.2, 7.4
24 Month Cognitive Development (T-score) 50.1, 16.3
Ability to delay gratification at 24 months (yes) 33.7%
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood Longitudinal
Study, Birth Cohort. Selected years 2001–2007
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Tests of association between parent conversation during shared television
viewing and child curiosity at kindergarten, and moderation by
socioeconomic status (Hypothesis 4)
We then examined whether the association between the frequency of parent screen-time con-
versation at preschool and kindergarten curiosity was moderated by socioeconomic status
(SES) (Hypothesis 4). We found evidence of moderation by SES, (S2 Appendix), and pro-
ceeded to examine this association further by stratifying by lower SES (median) and higher
SES (>median), adjusting for the a priori covariates. We found differences in parent-reported
curiosity between families from high and low levels of SES, for each category of parent conver-
sation (never,hardly ever,sometimes,often), with stronger association among families from
under-resourced environments (i.e., low SES) (Table 3). To test and confirm the linear trend
between parent conversation and curiosity, in this model only, we then tested the association
with parent conversation coded as a continuous variable (1–4). The linear trend demonstrated
that the effect of more frequent parent conversation on curiosity was stronger among low SES
families (B = 0.29, p <.001) compared with high SES families (B = 0.11, p <.001) (Fig 1).
Frequency of parent conversation during shared television viewing and
associations with characteristics of childhood curiosity
To further examine the psychometrics of our measure of curiosity and consider the value of
each question item, we conducted a post hoc analysis to determine if there were specific fea-
tures of childhood curiosity that were susceptible to the effects of parent conversation. We ran
four models, examining the association between the frequency of parent conversation (as a
continuous variable), and each curiosity question item as our outcome, adjusting for a priori
covariates. In these models, more frequent parent conversation was positively associated with
each curiosity question item, with the greatest magnitude of association demonstrated by
“shows imagination in work and play,” (B = 0.14, p <.001) (Table 4). The relatively similar
findings across items suggests that our curiosity measure tends to act as a unified construct.
Table 2. Descriptive characteristics of amount of television viewing and parent conversation during shared televi-
sion viewing.
(Weighted %) Total Sample Low SES High SES
Hours of Television Viewing/Day
0 hours 1.6% 1.0% 2.3%
1 hour 35.7% 28.1% 44.5%
2 hours 31.8% 31.5% 32.1%
3 hours 13.8% 16.7% 10.4%
4 hours 6.8% 8.9% 4.3%
5 hours 4.6% 5.9% 3.1%
6+ hours 5.8% 7.9% 3.3%
Parent Conversation During Shared TV Viewing
Often 49.8% 46.5% 53.6%
Sometimes 38.8% 42.1% 35.0%
Hardly Ever 8.6% 8.5% 8.7%
Never 2.8% 2.9% 2.7%
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood Longitudinal
Study, Birth Cohort. Selected years 2001–2007
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Discussion
This is the first study examining associations among amount of daily television exposure, fre-
quency of parent conversation during shared television viewing at preschool, socioeconomic
Table 3. Adjusted associations of daily television viewing, parent conversation during shared television viewing
and curiosity at kindergarten, stratified by higher and lower socioeconomic status (SES).
Lower SES Higher SES
Step 3 Results (with interaction, stratified by SES) B (SE) B (SE)
Hours of television viewing/day (linear term) -0.16 (0.06)-0.14 (0.07)
Hours of television viewing/day (quadratic term) 0.02 (0.01)0.01 (0.01)
Parent Conversation during shared TV viewing
Often 0.89 (0.17) 0.36 (0.14)
Sometimes 0.55 (0.17) 0.23 (0.14)
Hardly ever 0.40 (0.18)0.18 (0.17)
Never (REF) ——— ———
B coefficients are unstandardized betas.
: p <.05; : p <.01; : p <.001.
Analyses controlled for SES at kindergarten, maternal age, race/ethnicity, child cognitive development (24 months),
child’s age, child’s sex, child’s ability to delay gratification.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood Longitudinal
Study, Birth Cohort. Selected years 2001–2007.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258572.t003
Fig 1. Frequency of parent conversation during shared media viewing at preschool and mean curiosity at
kindergarten, stratified by higher and lower socioeconomic status (SES). B coefficients are unstandardized betas.
Bars indicate parent conversation during TV viewing examined as a categorical variable. Lines indicate parent
conversation during TV viewing examined as a continuous variable, to test and confirm the linear trend. : p <.05; :
p<.01. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood
Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort. Selected years 2001–2007.
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status, and parent-report of curiosity at kindergarten using a nationally representative sample.
In adjusted analyses, we found that higher daily television viewing at preschool had a small but
significant association with lower curiosity at kindergarten (Hypothesis 1), but that this associ-
ation was not moderated by socioeconomic status (SES) (Hypothesis 2). We found that more
frequent parent conversation during shared television viewing was associated with higher curi-
osity at kindergarten (Hypothesis 3a), but that more frequent parent conversation during
shared television viewing did not moderate the association between the amount of television
exposure and early childhood curiosity (Hypothesis 3b). While we found an association
between higher television viewing at preschool and lower parent-report curiosity at kindergar-
ten, we were not able to include measures of the content of the television programming.
Because the opportunities for conversation and scaffolding may differ if dyads are watching
educational TV versus other type of programming, our inability to include the content of the
television programming in our analyses (due to the constraints of the dataset) limits the
interpretability of the association between the amount of television viewing and kindergarten
curiosity.
We found an association between the amount of parent conversation during shared televi-
sion watching at preschool and early childhood curiosity (Hypothesis 3a) with evidence of
moderation by SES (Hypothesis 4). In both high and low SES families, parents who reported
higher amounts of conversation also rated their children as being more curious, with a greater
magnitude of association in children from under-resourced families. We have several possible
explanations to account for these findings. One interpretation is that parents who report
engaging in more conversation may also be more attuned to children’s expression of curiosity
(e.g., children’s asking of questions, and engagement in pedagogical exchanges in conversa-
tion), and thus they also report their children as having higher curiosity. However, while
greater parental conversational exchanges have been associated with more question-asking
from their children [42], this explanation does not explain why the magnitude of association
between the frequency of parent conversation and curiosity would be greater in low SES chil-
dren. One possible explanation is that some parents may engage in frequent conversation with
their children in settings other than television, but allow their children watch television alone,
which may explain why there is an attenuated association between conversations during
shared television watching and curiosity for higher SES parents. An alternate explanation is
that while the “cumulative risks” of socioeconomic disadvantage and less frequent parental
conversation may confer an added risk for lower curiosity [30], the same children who are
more vulnerable to suboptimal development (e.g. “lower curiosity”) may also be more suscepti-
ble to the effects of more stimulating caregiving environments (e.g. more frequent parent
Table 4. Association between frequency of parent conversation during shared media viewing and each curiosity
question item at kindergarten.
Curiosity Question B (SE) p
Likes to try new things 0.11 (0.02) <.001
Shows imagination in work and play 0.14 (0.02) <.001
Shows eagerness to learn new things 0.11 (0.02) <.001
Easily adjusts to a new situation 0.12 (0.02) <.001
B coefficients are unstandardized betas.
Analyses controlled for hours of daily television viewing, maternal age, race/ethnicity, child cognitive development
(24 months), SES at kindergarten, child’s age, child’s sex, child’s ability to delay gratification.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Early Childhood Longitudinal
Study, Birth Cohort. Selected years 2001–2007.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0258572.t004
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conversation) [43]. This suggests a potential “differential susceptibility” to the quality of the
caregiving environment, whereby low-SES children may reap added benefits from language-
promotive environments. Prior research has demonstrated how the quality of the linguistic
environment in the home (e.g. quality and quantity of language stimulation) can mitigate the
effects of socioeconomic disparities (i.e., poverty) on brain structure and later language and lit-
eracy outcomes [44,45]. Our results similarly suggest that the quality of the early linguistic
environment (characterized by more frequent parent conversation during shared TV viewing)
while promotive of higher curiosity in all children, may be especially beneficial to foster curios-
ity in children with socioeconomic disadvantage.
These findings have implications for the anticipatory guidance provided to parents. There
is some evidence suggesting that children with low curiosity fail engage with their environ-
ments in ways that foster motivation, achievement, and more specifically, academic develop-
ment [46]. Building on our previous work which suggested that higher curiosity can help
narrow the achievement gap associated with poverty [10], our results suggest that one potential
way to foster curiosity is through facilitating conversational exchanges between children and
their parents around moments of shared activity, especially for children from low socioeco-
nomic environments. This aligns with previous language-related research which demonstrates
that socioeconomically disadvantaged children preferentially benefit from greater child-
directed speech and conversational exchanges [27,45,47,48]. Our findings also highlight the
importance of parental scaffolding for child engagement and learning. In the same way that
parental engagement with children around shared play with toys facilitates children’s learning
and exploration [49], we found that parent conversation (as measured around shared televi-
sion viewing) could be similarly scaffolding, associated with higher expressions of child
curiosity.
Prior research has demonstrated that children learn best in environments that are interac-
tive, encouraging turn-taking, dialogic exchanges and intrinsically motivated questions [47,
50]. Our results similarly attest to this, but with an important consideration for children with
socioeconomic disadvantage. While incremental increases in the frequency of parent conver-
sation were associated with higher curiosity for all children, for children from under-resourced
(i.e., low SES) environments, only parents who often engaged in conversation around shared
television viewing had children whose curiosity scores were above the mean. Conversely, chil-
dren from more-resourced environments (i.e., high SES) had curiosity scores above the mean
even if parents hardly ever conversed when viewing television together. The “curiosity gap”
between higher and lower SES children was greatest when parents “never” or “hardly ever”
engaged in television-related conversation but was not observed when conversational
exchanges occurred “often.” This suggests that for children from under-resourced environ-
ments, more frequent parent conversation may help enable the expression of curiosity. One
implication is that parents from low SES environments might benefit from anticipatory guid-
ance regarding the importance of dialogic (back and forth) conversation to promote inquisi-
tiveness and learning. Such guidance may include interventions similar to “parent coaching”
to facilitate conversational exchanges to promote early language development [51]. At present,
because the dominant screen activity of low-income children involves television viewing [52],
and because television viewing is essentially non-conversational and non-interactive [53], fos-
tering opportunities for conversational exchanges around television viewing (in addition to
other shared activities) may be one potential naturalistic intervention [47].
Our results also indicate that more frequent parent conversation was associated with parent
reports of higher imagination at kindergarten. The topics eliciting a child’s curiosity are often
related to a child’s idiosyncratic interests [54], and are revealed in the context of responsive,
interactive exchanges [55]. Because we hypothesize that conversation around shared television
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Daily television exposure, parent conversation, SES and curiosity
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viewing likely included pedagogical exchanges, (e.g., “What do you think is going on? Why do
you think that happened?”), our results suggest the possibility that more frequent conversation
(in all contexts, not just television viewing) can promote imaginative expression (one of the
underpinnings of curiosity [56]) at kindergarten. Interventions to promote dialogic exchanges
and language-rich caregiver-child interactions have been shown to be beneficial for early
imagination and learning, and may be similarly promotive for early childhood curiosity [57,
58].
Our study had several strengths and limitations. Strengths include the use of a nationally
representative sample which included a child behavior questionnaire from which we could
derive a measure of curiosity, whose results are generalizable to the population. One limitation
is that our study used parent self-reports to measure the amount of television viewing and par-
ent conversation, and our curiosity factor was derived from a single parent-report behavioral
measure at the kindergarten timepoint. As such, we acknowledge the potential bias and shared
method variance associated with parent report measures. In addition, although a subsample
analysis indicated that parents who engaged in more frequent television-related conversation
were more likely to use elaborative language, there was no independent measure of non-televi-
sion parent-child conversation for the entire sample, so we were unable to control for non-
screen time language. Although there was a teacher-report of child behavior at kindergarten, it
did not include all the “curiosity” items, so we could not examine curiosity across reporters. In
addition, the dataset did not contain information regarding the content of the television pro-
grams watched, which is a potential confounder which we were not able to include in our anal-
yses. We also acknowledge that while we found significant associations between the hours of
television viewing, frequency of parent conversation and parent reports of curiosity, our effect
sizes were small. Finally, while the ECLS-B is a rich dataset and among the only longitudinal
cohorts from the United States, the data are older, and did not include measures of smart-
phones and other portable technologies on which television programming may be watched,
along with more conversational media such as video-chatting, which is an additional limita-
tion. Future research should consider examining these associations in relation to use of con-
versational and non-conversational digital media across screen platforms. Future research
should also examine other features of curiosity that might help mitigate the poverty achieve-
ment gap [59], and consider other adaptive outcomes associated with early childhood curiosity
[60]. Despite these limitations, we believe that our results have some important implications
for caregivers and pediatricians.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that more frequent parent-child conversations around television viewing
(which may be a proxy for other conversational exchanges) are associated with higher curios-
ity, especially in children with socioeconomic disadvantage. This highlights the importance of
parents engaging in reciprocal conversations around topics and experiences of mutual interest
[47], and suggests the importance of finding opportunities foster conversational exchanges in
the context of daily routines (e.g., even when watching television). Aligning with the American
Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendations on media [61,62], parents can be counseled on the
value of parental instructive dialogue during television viewing (e.g. “active mediation”) [63],
as an opportunity to promote inquiry [64]. Parent-child conversations that are guided by
active mediation have been associated with more adaptive social-emotional development in
young children, with a greater magnitude of effect in children from low-income families [65].
Our work extends this line of research and highlights the benefits of active mediation on early
childhood curiosity. Because parent conversation around television viewing is likely related to
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parent conversation in the home, our results also suggest the importance of fostering opportu-
nities for dialogic exchanges around all topics (not just television), especially for children from
environments of socioeconomic disadvantage [27].
Supporting information
S1 Appendix. Adjusted associations of daily television viewing, parent conversation during
shared television viewing and curiosity (Step 1 –main effects).
(DOCX)
S2 Appendix. Adjusted associations of daily television viewing, parent conversation during
shared television viewing and curiosity, moderated by SES (Step 2- moderation results,
prior to median split).
(DOCX)
S3 Appendix. Derived curiosity factor from the ECLS-B.
(DOCX)
Author Contributions
Conceptualization: Prachi E. Shah, Todd B. Kashdan, Katherine Rosenblum.
Data curation: Prachi E. Shah, Heidi M. Weeks, Niko Kaciroti.
Formal analysis: Heidi M. Weeks, Niko Kaciroti.
Funding acquisition: Prachi E. Shah.
Investigation: Prachi E. Shah.
Methodology: Prachi E. Shah, Katherine Rosenblum.
Project administration: Heidi M. Weeks.
Resources: Prachi E. Shah.
Supervision: Prachi E. Shah, Katherine Rosenblum.
Writing – original draft: Prachi E. Shah, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Todd B. Kashdan, Katherine
Rosenblum, Heidi M. Weeks, Priya Singh.
Writing – review & editing: Prachi E. Shah, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Todd B. Kashdan, Kristen
Harrison, Katherine Rosenblum, Heidi M. Weeks, Priya Singh, Niko Kaciroti.
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