> Trait curiosity gets you almost nothing: no better learning outcomes, no better performance, and no better recall (in complex problem solving anyway; results are sometimes different in trivial pursuits
May it be, that positive outcomes of curiosity as a trait are beyond what you are measuring? For example, I learned a lot about how organizations work, because I was curious often why some organization failed to do something, or how it managed to do something where other failed. I had no idea at first what it means to go to Moon from organizational point of view, but when some managed to do it while other failed, I became curious. This curiosity led me to learn a lot about management on many examples, and often I found something to think about when I least expected it. Like I read some random news article and it mentioned some difficulties which organization faced. And my curiosity at first was not directed at management, though with time the direction shifted, now I curious how organizations work even when it have nothing to do with Moon.
When you have a lot of unanswered questions in your head, then almost everything counts for something to one of these questions.
> I don't believe there is a way to boost your state (task) curiosity. I'd also be skeptical that you can boost your trait curiosity.
Operant conditioning? Eat a cookie every time you've found a curios question, googled it and found an answer. Wouldn't it work? I believe it would boost the trait. I'm not sure about the state curiosity.
> I would genuinely be interested in knowing what you, dear reader, think curiosity really is.
I think, that we need first to separate curiosity as a behavior and curiosity as a trait of mind. As a behavior curiosity is anything from your list: desire to gain knowledge, or to see if you are right or wrong, or testing existing hypotheses, and so on.
Curiosity as a mind trait is an urge to pull a dangling thread. When you see a question without a clear answer, you feel desire to answer it. Some people do not see questions, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are not curious, their curiosity is just triggered less often. Some people see questions, but do not behave as curious, either because they are not curious enough (they lack curiosity), or they invent some answer that doesn't really answer anything (like "why this happened"? "because of magic"). These magic answers, I believe, is the result of untrained curiosity. People feel urge to answer question, but they cannot find a way to use their urge for constructive purposes, so they do something to stop their urge bothering them.
May it be, that positive outcomes of curiosity as a trait are beyond what you are measuring? For example, I learned a lot about how organizations work, because I was curious often why some organization failed to do something, or how it managed to do something where other failed. I had no idea at first what it means to go to Moon from organizational point of view, but when some managed to do it while other failed, I became curious. This curiosity led me to learn a lot about management on many examples, and often I found something to think about when I least expected it. Like I read some random news article and it mentioned some difficulties which organization faced. And my curiosity at first was not directed at management, though with time the direction shifted, now I curious how organizations work even when it have nothing to do with Moon.
When you have a lot of unanswered questions in your head, then almost everything counts for something to one of these questions.
> I don't believe there is a way to boost your state (task) curiosity. I'd also be skeptical that you can boost your trait curiosity.
Operant conditioning? Eat a cookie every time you've found a curios question, googled it and found an answer. Wouldn't it work? I believe it would boost the trait. I'm not sure about the state curiosity.
> I would genuinely be interested in knowing what you, dear reader, think curiosity really is.
I think, that we need first to separate curiosity as a behavior and curiosity as a trait of mind. As a behavior curiosity is anything from your list: desire to gain knowledge, or to see if you are right or wrong, or testing existing hypotheses, and so on.
Curiosity as a mind trait is an urge to pull a dangling thread. When you see a question without a clear answer, you feel desire to answer it. Some people do not see questions, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are not curious, their curiosity is just triggered less often. Some people see questions, but do not behave as curious, either because they are not curious enough (they lack curiosity), or they invent some answer that doesn't really answer anything (like "why this happened"? "because of magic"). These magic answers, I believe, is the result of untrained curiosity. People feel urge to answer question, but they cannot find a way to use their urge for constructive purposes, so they do something to stop their urge bothering them.