Smokers’ Curiosity Facilitates Recall of Tobacco-Related Health Information

Abstract

ABSTRACT Curiosity promotes learning. Two open questions concern the extent to which tobacco smokers exhibit curiosity about smoking-related health information and whether this curiosity can facilitate recall of this information. Participants (n = 324 smokers; n = 280 nonsmokers) performed a Trivia Guessing Task wherein participants guessed the answers to general trivia and smoking-related trivia questions and provided ratings of their curiosity prior to viewing the answers to the questions. A subset of participants (n = 121 smokers; n = 97 nonsmokers) completed a surprise Trivia Memory Task one-week later and answered the previously-viewed questions. Results indicate that smokers are no less curious about smoking-related trivia than they are about general trivia and that curiosity about the answer to smoking-related trivia is associated with more accurate recall of smoking-related trivia answers one week later. Findings suggest that engendering states of curiosity for smoking-related information may facilitate retention of that information in smokers.