Curiosity Behavior Research Articles

The Protective Role of Curiosity Behaviors in Coping with Existential Vacuum.

An existential vacuum is experienced as a kind of crisis that one can cope with using his/her strengths. The related literature suggests that the important determinants of coping with existential emptiness include positive emotional and personality resources, and among these-Curiosity Behaviors. The purpose of this study is to describe the role of curiosity as an important factor in relation to emotional resources in individuals experiencing an existential vacuum. A survey was conducted using online tools (n = 484). The hypotheses about the direct and indirect relationships between Curiosity Behaviors and existential vacuum were tested using multiple regression analyses and mediations. The study involved a sample of adult participants representing the general population. The participants completed five questionnaires, the first one focusing on Curiosity Behaviors, such as seeking out novel and challenging experiences and engagement in activities that capture one's attention (The Curiosity and Exploration Inventory), and the other tools being the Multidimensional Existential Meaning Scale, the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire, the Flourishing Scale, and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale. The results indicate that Curiosity Behaviors characteristically negatively predict existential vacuum. In addition, other variables, such as Flourishing, seem to be useful in explaining the relationships between these factors. Flourishing along with Curiosity increases a sense of Meaning in Life. Our results present evidence showing the importance of Curiosity Behaviors in coping with the existential vacuum.

Expanding career adaptability: connections as a critical component of career success

PurposeSubjective career success has been widely researched by academics and researchers as it provides job and career satisfaction that can lead to the perceived life satisfaction of employees, as well as their engagement in organizations. This study demonstrates that subjective career success depends not merely on career adaptability but also on the connections people build throughout their professional lives.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted in the socioeconomic context of Latvia with a sample size of 390 respondents. Interpersonal behavioral factors from the perception of career success measure and the influence of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS) on subjective career success (two statements from Gaile et al., 2020) were used. The constructed research model was tested using the SPSS 28 and WarpPLS 8.0 software tools. The primary data analysis method used was partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Then 12 moderators and their effects on the main relationships of the model were reviewed.FindingsThe study confirms that relationships at work have the most significant effect on subjective career success, followed by control behaviors and curiosity behaviors. Moreover, a list of significant and insightful moderation effects was found, most significantly the relationship between connections and subjective career success.Originality/valueUntil now, the CAAS was not integrated with the behaviors and attitudes that depict the social relationships of individuals at work. This study aims to narrow this gap by exploring whether (and, if so, how) career adaptability and interpersonal relationships in the workplace (i.e. professional connections) contribute to subjective career success.

Analisis Perkembangan Kognitif Terhadap Pola Tingkah Laku Siswa Dalam Kegiatan Pembelajaran Di Sekolah Dasar

Cognitive development, especially in elementary school age children, is an important thing for a classroom teacher to know and understand. Each child has different cognitive abilities and influences changes in behavior during the learning process. Behavior is essentially a form of students' attitudes in interacting with their learning environment. The purpose of this study was to analyze the cognitive development of students' behavior patterns in learning activities. The method used in this study is a qualitative descriptive approach and using data collection techniques carried out in three ways, namely through document studies, interviews, and observations. The behavior patterns that students show at school during the learning process are, 1) independent behavior, 2) student discipline, 3) curiosity behavior, 4) honest behavior.

Examining subjective career success of knowledge workers

Subjective career success describes an individual’s satisfaction with his/her professional life. We propose a novel model for evaluating the universal personal values as well as the behavioral and socio-demographic factors that lead to subjective career success. Data was collected from employees of organizations across 20 different industries in Latvia (with a sample size of N = 348). This study reveals that the personal values that have the most significant influence on a subjective career are self-direction and power. Behavioral factors explained nearly 30% of the variance, revealing that the most important career behaviors that lead to subjective career success are control and confidence behaviors as well as attitudes toward rewards and relationships. Curiosity behaviors and education levels had negative impact on subjective career success, and previous experience in managerial positions had the most significant positive impact on the subjective career success of the respondent included in the sample. The respondents’ genders had no impact on subjective career success. The results of the study are applicable to both organizations and their human resource departments as well as individuals who aim at advancing their careers. For individuals, there is an important message to be had that, by practicing pro-active career behaviors, they can possibly compensate for some lack of education or previous managerial experience. On the organizational side, it is important to understand what personal, behavioral, and socio-demographic factors lead to the positive perception of a career path, as it would increase one’s organizational commitment and drive him/her toward reaching their organizational goals.

A study on knowledge of mothers on lead poisoning among children at selected hospital, Mangalore

Lead is a highly toxic and poisonous metal. It can cause severe mental and physical impairment. Young children are most vulnerable because they absorb four to five times more ingested lead compared to adults from a given source. Children's curiosity behaviour and their age-appropriate hand-to-mouth behaviour results in their mouthing and swallowing lead-containing objects, such as contaminated soil or dust flakes from decaying lead-containing paints further increasing the risk of lead poisoning. Awareness about lead poisoning and a deeper understanding of its effect on children among caregivers can prevent lead poisoning. The aim of this study was to assess mothers' knowledge regarding lead poisoning in children. Descriptive study design and convenience sampling technique were used to select 99 mothers to assess their knowledge on lead poisoning among children. The data were collected with structured knowledge questionnaire. Findings show that 54.5% had average knowledge, 27.3% had good knowledge, 14.1% had very good knowledge and 4% had poor knowledge. Study reveals that nearly half of the mothers (54.5%) have average knowledge on lead poisoning which shows that there is a need for conducting health education and other awareness programmes on lead poisoning in the community.

Accidents between artisanal fisheries and cetaceans on the Brazilian coast and Central Amazon: Proposals for integrated management

Human Ecology studies have shown the importance of the local knowledge that fishery communities have for providing information on the relationship between fishery and cetaceans. Fishers should be partners in the process of fishery management and they may help in the search for solutions. In this sense, the main objectives of this study are to qualitatively describe the accidents between cetaceans and fishing boats on the Brazilian coast and the Central Amazon region through the perception of the artisanal fishers, and to propose mitigatory measures to decrease their occurrences. From 2005 to 2010, 215 ethnographic interviews were conducted, focusing on this kind of interaction in fishers communities from the states of Amazonas, Bahia, Espírito Santo, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul. The interviewed fishers identified five species: Inia geoffrensis, Sotalia guianensis, Tursiops truncatus, Eubalaena australis and Megaptera novaeangliae. The justifications for the occurrence of the accidents described are related to the curiosity behavior of I. geoffrensis during the pursuit of their prey; coastal dolphins (S. guianensis and T. truncatus) tend to swim at high speeds and collide with the boats; and the baleen whales collide while they are trying to protect their calves and during night time, when there is low visibility. In order to decrease the number of these accidents, co-management is proposed, in which local members, researchers and the government would work together to encourage the collective feeling of ownership within the communities aiming to minimize the number of collisions.

Comparative Psychology as Unified Psychology: The Case of Curiosity and Other Novelty-Related Behavior

The comparative study of human and nonhuman animals covers the full range of psychological phenomenon, and so comparative psychology already exists as a form of general psychology. The potential of comparative psychology to bring together many aspects of the field of psychology is illustrated through a review of studies exploring curiosity in a variety of species. The issue of an organism's response to novelty was recognized as an important research subject in the era of Darwin. Since that time, considerable empirical and theoretical material on various aspects of behavior associated with new stimuli has been accumulated. This research additionally illustrates the utility of integrative levels theory, which enables a multilevel, comprehensive analysis of behavior. Comparative psychologists played important roles in the history of most of psychology's subdisciplines, and present-day comparative psychologists continue to contribute insights into a startlingly broad range of psychological phenomenon. Further, appreciation for the higher-level research program provided by comparative work provides a larger context that helps ground the study of human psychology.

A Cross-Level Model of Curiosity and Innovative Workplace Behavior

Many organizations are increasingly called upon to innovate in order to succeed in a highly competitive, global business environment. As a result, identifying individual-level predictors of innovat...

A Laboratory Study of Curiosity Behavior in Feedback-Baased Decisions

Problem statement: This study adopts an interdisciplinary approach in conducting the study on "curiosity" with a toolset of experimental economics. Approach: I hypothesized that the Decision Makers (DMs) tended to exhibit curiosity behavior when two conditions were met: (1) The DMs faced "small feedback-based" decision problems; (2) The DMs bore tangible costs of their curiosity behavior. Results: This study was the first to address the phenomenon of curiosity, using an economics experiment, where the DMs received financial performance-based incentives (i.e., monetary payoffs that were contingent on their performance in the experiment). Economics studies the cost and benefit of any action made by the DMs, whereas psychologists do not. A key feature of the current experiment was that the DMs faced 100-fold binary choice between two alternatives, both of which yielded fixed payoffs. Conclusion/Recommendations: Experimental results were interpreted as a confirmation of the hypothesis that curiosity was aroused when the aforementioned two conditions were met.

Changing, priming, and acting on values: Effects via motivational relations in a circular model.

Circular models of values and goals suggest that some motivational aims are consistent with each other, some oppose each other, and others are orthogonal to each other. The present experiments tested this idea explicitly by examining how value confrontation and priming methods influence values and value-consistent behaviors throughout the entire value system. Experiment 1 revealed that change in 1 set of social values causes motivationally compatible values to increase in importance, whereas motivationally incompatible values decrease in importance and orthogonal values remain the same. Experiment 2 found that priming security values reduced the better-than-average effect, but priming stimulation values increased it. Similarly, Experiments 3 and 4 found that priming security values increased cleanliness and decreased curiosity behaviors, whereas priming self-direction values decreased cleanliness and increased curiosity behaviors. Experiment 5 found that priming achievement values increased success at puzzle completion and decreased helpfulness to an experimenter, whereas priming with benevolence values decreased success and increased helpfulness. These results highlight the importance of circular models describing motivational interconnections between values and personal goals.

Perceived stimulus complexity and food preference development

The importance of perceived complexity, a ‘collative property’ as defined by [Berlyne, D. E. (1967). Arousal and reinforcement. In Nebraska symposium on motivation (pp. 1–110). University of Nebraska Press], to the dynamic development of preference was investigated. Eighty-six female and 82 male subjects rated their liking for and various collative properties of seven very similar orange drinks that differed only in perceived complexity as a result of adding small quantities of other flavours. This was done before and after giving each subject extended experience of one of the drinks, each being used equally often for this purpose. As predicted by the theory of [Dember, W. N., & Earl, R. W. (1957). Analysis of exploratory, manipulatory and curiosity behavior. Psychological Review, 64 (2), 91–96] exposure to a stimulus with a slightly higher complexity than an individual subject’s optimally preferred level of perceived complexity, caused an upwards shift in that level, whereas exposure to a less complex stimulus had no such effect. Changes in the appreciation of the drinks predicted by the theory were also observed.

Is the Conscience Collective Black and White?

ABSTRACT This article takes as its theme the black and white photography that forms a common record of occupations and kinship ties in the fishing communities of West Cornwall. These photographs also form the iconography by which tourists remember their holiday experience there. The essay explores tourists' acquisition of photographs through the assertion first put forward by Sontag [1977] that photographic images are “miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire.” The countervailing argument is put forward that tourists' access to the past through such images can only be partial. The principle argument advanced is that photographs play an essential role in the continuity of contemporary cultures in Cornwall. Taking as its focus the fishing village of Sennen Cove in West Cornwall, the study shows through ethnographic examples how black and white photographs stimulate the conscience collective among indigenous peoples. It uses anthropological methodology to stimulate remembrance of kin ties, experience, and interaction, and demonstrates that this process is not confined to the location of elderly informants in a “dying culture.” Contrary to this view, it is shown that new generations of Cornish people are using the past, captured in black and white images, to give collective meaning to their own existence. This process is partially illustrated by the reaction of a local woman to a photo of her relatives (all fishermen in Sennen Cove). She said, “It makes me feel existential to ponder how in their lifetimes, they knew the Cove as I do in mine.” Black and white photographs, far from being merely the subject of tourist curiosity and acquisitive behavior, create a medium in which indigenous people today create their own being.

Understanding Children's Curiosity and Exploration through the Lenses of Lewin's Field Theory: On Developing an Appraisal Framework

Curiosity as a motivational force is often linked with knowledge acquisition. Adults are important mediators to motivate children's curiosity and exploration, and their foremost task is to understand the child. This article proposes to use Kurt Lewin's field theory as a framework to appraise children's momentary state of curiosity and exploratory behavior. Taking a dynamic view of child-environment interaction, this framework is characterized by a micro level process analysis. Two levels of analysis: child-stimulus situation and child-stimulus-adult situation are discussed. Adult's sensitivity to the child's perspective is emphasized. The proposed framework argues that a parent can be a source of barrier in hindering a child's exploration or a facilitator to remove barriers.

Responses of West Greenland caribou to the approach of humans on foot

Responses to the approach of a human were studied in two caribou populations (Akia and Isortoq) in West Greenland during calving, summer and after the hunt in 1997–98. For each group encountered the distance between the approaching person and the caribou at their first sign of fright (“fright threshold distance”), the distance between the person and the caribou when they began to move away (“flight threshold distance”), and the distance the caribou ran (“run distance”) were measured with a laser range finder. Generally, groups of caribou had longer fright threshold, flight threshold and run distances, indicating more vigilance than single individuals. Groups with calves were more vigilant than female and male groups, while there was no difference between female and male groups. This pattern was most clear in the Akia population. The frequency of curiosity behaviour indicated that the Akia caribou were less vigilant than the Isortoq caribou after the hunting, while there was no locational difference during the other seasons. Caribou in Akia were most vigilant during calving, whereas in the Isortoq population the highest vigilance was found after hunting. Hunting seemed to have heightened awareness in the Isortoq population. It is concluded that flight and fright reactions of Greenland caribou are similar to those found among other caribou populations, and that precautions should be taken to minimize disturbing caribou during calving.

Responses of West Greenland caribou to the approach of humans on foot

Responses to the approach of a human were studied in two caribou populations (Akia and Isortoq) in West Greenland during calving, summer and after the hunt in 1997–98. For each group encountered the distance between the approaching person and the caribou at their first sign of fright (“fright threshold distance”), the distance between the person and the caribou when they began to move away (“flight threshold distance”), and the distance the caribou ran (“run distance”) were measured with a laser range finder. Generally, groups of caribou had longer fright threshold, flight threshold and run distances, indicating more vigilance than single individuals. Groups with calves were more vigilant than female and male groups, while there was no difference between female and male groups. This pattern was most clear in the Akia population. The frequency of curiosity behaviour indicated that the Akia caribou were less vigilant than the Isortoq caribou after the hunting, while there was no locational difference during the other seasons. Caribou in Akia were most vigilant during calving, whereas in the Isortoq population the highest vigilance was found after hunting. Hunting seemed to have heightened awareness in the Isortoq population. It is concluded that flight and fright reactions of Greenland caribou are similar to those found among other caribou populations, and that precautions should be taken to minimize disturbing caribou during calving.

273 Objective evaluation of the psychophysiological response induced by preferred or non-preferred foods

The importance of perceived complexity, a ‘collative property’ as defined by [Berlyne, D. E. (1967). Arousal and reinforcement. In Nebraska symposium on motivation (pp. 1–110). University of Nebraska Press], to the dynamic development of preference was investigated. Eighty-six female and 82 male subjects rated their liking for and various collative properties of seven very similar orange drinks that differed only in perceived complexity as a result of adding small quantities of other flavours. This was done before and after giving each subject extended experience of one of the drinks, each being used equally often for this purpose. As predicted by the theory of [Dember, W. N., & Earl, R. W. (1957). Analysis of exploratory, manipulatory and curiosity behavior. Psychological Review, 64 (2), 91–96] exposure to a stimulus with a slightly higher complexity than an individual subject’s optimally preferred level of perceived complexity, caused an upwards shift in that level, whereas exposure to a less complex stimulus had no such effect. Changes in the appreciation of the drinks predicted by the theory were also observed.

Practicing What We Teach: Developing Appropriate Practices for Early Childhood Preservice Teachers

We should not be troubled about motivating children for creative behavior. What we should be aware of are the psychological and physical restrictions that the environment places on children to inhibit their own natural curiosity and exploratory behavior. (Rothbart, 1972, p. 90)

CURIOSITY IN SMALL CHILDREN AND CHILDREARING STYLE OF THEIR MOTHERS

The present study examined the connection between curiosity behaviour of small children and their mothers' childrearing style. Twenty children from 2.5 years to 4.5 years in age were separately observed in free play with a toy set of the Sceno Test. For each child the amount of manipulated material was noted. It was found that the differences among the group were both sex and age independent. Subsequently, video observations of interactional play between mother and child in the home environment were carried out. By means of qualitative content analysis of the video recordings for all twenty mother‐child pairs, the frequency of controlling behaviour by the mothers was assessed. A very high correlation between curiosity behaviour in a free play situation and controlling behaviour of the mother in the mother‐child interaction was established.

The curiosity of abused preschool children in mother-present, teacher-present, and stranger-present situations

The purposes of this study were (a) to examine differences in the curiosity behavior of abused preschool children in three situations: with their mothers, a teacher, and a female stranger; (b) to determine whether these children would exhibit more curiosity when exposed to novel versus familiar objects; and (c) to examine several adult behaviors that are theoretically related to children's curiosity. Twenty-three 2-to 5-year-old abused low socioeconomic children participated in a warm-up session with their mothers followed by three procedurally equivalent sessions during which the child, the mother, the teacher, and a stranger were exposed to 6 novel and 6 familiar play objects. Regardless of the social situation, the children and the adults explored the familiar objects more than the novel objects. The children explored the novel objects significantly less in the stranger-present situation than in the other situations. Finally, the pattern of adult findings indicated that abusive mothers were less likely to encourage curiosity in their children than were teachers or strangers. These results were related to past research with white, middle-class, nonabused children.

Intrinsic Motivation and the Overjustification Effect: A Failure to Replicate

Abstract Two studies were conducted to determine how motivational orientation might mediate occurrence of decreased play effects. The over justification effect was not replicated in either study; the results showed that the choice of alternate tasks available during the free-play period of the experimental procedure affected the time spent on the target activity. In addition, the results suggested that some aspects of intrinsic motivation, such as curiosity and mastery behavior, are more closely related to school performance than other dimensions of motivational orientation.