Curiosity: what it means and how to respond

Noticing a gap

Curiosity is the itch to know who wins, why the bread collapsed, what your coworker meant by that comment. Something is missing in your picture, and you feel drawn to complete it.

Loewenstein reviewed decades of research and proposed that curiosity is a form of cognitively induced deprivation that arises when people perceive a gap in their knowledge or understanding (Loewenstein, 1994). That information gap idea explains why a cliffhanger works so well, and why you cannot feel curious about a topic you know nothing about: you need enough knowledge to notice what is missing.

How curiosity feels

People describe an alert, leaning-in feeling: eyes narrowing or widening, a tilt of the head, a pull to search, open the box, or ask. Curiosity is usually pleasant, though an unanswered question can become nagging if it lingers.

Curiosity is fragile under pressure. When you are rushed, anxious, or worried about looking ignorant, it tends to shrink, and people fall back on assumptions. That is why curious questions often come more easily in relaxed settings, and why making space for them in tense moments takes a deliberate choice.

Curiosity as a learning engine

In trivia studies, Vogl and colleagues found that curiosity followed confident wrong answers and predicted people looking up more information (Vogl and colleagues, 2020). Being surprised that you were wrong, and curious about why, is a strong combination for learning.

Curiosity about people may be the most practical kind. Research on perspective taking found that imagining someone's view did not make people more accurate about what they thought or felt, while asking them directly did (Eyal, Steffel, and Epley, 2018). In other words, a curious question beats a confident guess.

Curiosity, wonder, and boredom

Wonder adds amazement: you marvel at the thing as well as wanting to understand it. Boredom is curiosity's absence: wanting to engage and finding nothing that holds you. Anticipation looks forward to an expected event; curiosity is about an unknown.

Example: the comment in the meeting

After a project review, Grace's colleague says, “Interesting approach,” in a tone she cannot read. Her first instinct is to decide he hated it. Instead she stops by his desk: “When you said interesting approach, I couldn't tell if that was good or a concern. What were you thinking?” He says he was worried about one data source and liked the rest. One question replaced a weekend of guessing.

Three ways to use curiosity

1. Notice when you are guessing about something you could simply ask, especially about another person's thoughts or feelings.
2. Ask an open question that starts with what or how, not a yes or no question that confirms your guess.
3. Follow one thread at a time. Pick one question to chase today rather than opening twenty tabs.

Words you could use

• “I couldn't tell if that was good or a concern. What were you thinking?”
• “How did you figure that out? I'd love to know.”
• “Wait, why does that happen? Let's look it up.”

A reflection prompt

Where am I guessing about someone's thoughts when I could ask, and what stops me from asking?

The EQTiger dimension it relates to

Curiosity relates to Empathy and Perspective-Taking: asking about another person's experience instead of assuming you already know it. Read what the empathy score describes.