Impatience for Information: Curiosity Is Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Abstract

Organizations strive to encourage curiosity, seeking employees who are open to asking questions and intrinsically motivated to find answers, i.e., who display curiosity traits. We argue that situational determinants are stronger predictors of information-seeking behaviors than traits. Situational curiosity is transient, and while people may be tempted by immediate answers, they may be less motivated when they need to wait for information. In a preregistered experiment (N = 1,245) featuring real effort and incentives, we find that a small change in the schedule of information provision—delaying performance feedback by 24–48 hours—reduces participants’ willingness to obtain this information by 24%. The effect of this short delay is at least three times stronger than a one-standard-deviation difference in trait openness. This reduction cannot be explained by standard models of time discounting or the goal gradient hypothesis, as an identical delay in monetary rewards reduces participants’ efforts by only 3%.