October 20, 2025 • 35 mins
Every day this week, we’re exploring a different aspect of curiosity—you know, the thing that makes you listen to this show. We’re starting off by discovering what happens in our brains when we experience curiosity, why some things make us curious and others don’t, how a lack of novelty can lead to pretty strange behavior, and how all of this ties in to our willingness to buy oat milk.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Guess what Will? What's that?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
If you've ever made a decision then wondered what might
have happened if you'd made a different decision, you've experienced
something called counterfactual curiosity. Is that something that's familiar to you?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Yeah, that means nothing for me. I mean when I
make up my mind, that is it. There is no
second guessing, Mango. Yeah, Well, you are very unusual, and
counterfactual curiosity is also unusual because, unlike other types of curiosity,
pursuing that line of thinking never leads to a reward.
Knowing what could have happened has zero real world benefit
(00:57):
unless you own a time machine, and often it has
negative impact because it makes you feel regret. So you
think that if there's something with no reward and a
high risk of negativity, you'd want to avoid it. But
studies have shown that just isn't true.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
In one test, people were shown in an animation of
a balloon and they had to choose a number of
times to pump the balloon, and if it burst, they lost,
if it stayed intact, they won. So Afterwards, participants were
given the option of seeing the correct number of pumps
that would have inflated the balloon without bursting it, and
over and over and over they requested that information, even
(01:31):
though they also reported that knowing the answer made them
feel worse if their guests had popped the balloon.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Wow, so that counterfactual curiosity was just too strong, unlike
the blown I suppose exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And today we are kicking off a week long series
all about curiosity, why we have it, how it changes
over the course of our lives, whether animals experience it,
and where that saying curiosity killed the cat really came from.
We've got lots of questions and all most as many answers,
So let's step in.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm here with my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticket and Mango. You won't believe this
one thing our Palin producer, Dylan Fagan is doing over
there in the booth today.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
What's he doing?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
He's doing one thing that'll blow your mind.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Mango, I cannot see from where I'm saying. Will you
just tell me?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Well, do you really want to know, yes, of course,
I want to know you sound that you actually sound
maybe a little bit annoyed.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I have annoyed.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, then my experiment is a success, Mango, I've successfully trapped.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
You in an information gap.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
That's a concept of curiosity, developed by behavioral economist George Lowenstein,
who incidentally is the great grandson of Sigmund Freud. Now,
according to him, curiosity is a form of cognitive deprivation
that occurs when you have some concrete information.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
But you don't feel like you have enough.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
So it's not a total absence of knowledge, but it
is an absence of satisfaction because the other key thing
is you're aware that this gap could potentially be filled.
So in your case, just now, I gave you a small,
but you know, super tantalizing piece of information, and I
told you that Dylan was doing a specific activity in
the booth. I made it clear that I knew what
(03:32):
it was that primed you for a sudden rush of curiosity. Now,
if I just said Dylan isn't here today, I don't
know where he is, you might still wonder what he's
up to, but you probably wouldn't feel that strong urge
to find out even though in the end it's the
same basic scenario. Dylan's doing something and you have no
idea what it is.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Mango.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
That is fascinating. But also I have this feeling that
you're never going to tell me what he's doing.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I'll tell you what at the end of the episode.
We'll have Dylan self fill you in.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
That is an incredible treat. It's a deal. Okay. So,
as I mentioned earlier, this is the beginning of our
week long exploration of curiosity. And I'm really excited because
you know, I think we both are curious people. Our
lives are animated by curiosity, right, Like it's such a
big part of our friendship too. I mean I know that,
(04:21):
like just hearing the topics you were fascinated by, like history, religion,
et cetera, and the classes you were interested in made
me want to befriend you because like you picked out
interesting things and you always had some like curious, fascinating
thing to talk about.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
It's kind of wild to think about We're going on
almost three decades of being curious about stuff together.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
When you think about that.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
First year dorm room in college and coming back from
those classes, like you mentioned, having learned something interesting. Cramming
into a dorm room with other friends and talking about
it almost makes me feel like we were a little
bit nerdy, But I can't decide.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, not at all, just the time.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
But you're right, it's the best feeling in the world
to learn something new, to have somebody share something that
they've learned, and just to exercise that curiosity.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
We were also curious about stupid things, right, like that
bouncy ball that came into our dorm room and our
senior year, and we would just like all of us,
wanted to see how many times you could bounce it
from the ground to the ceiling and just keep it going.
And we wanted to know what the limits of this
bouncy ball.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and we had the strong arms to
test it out. My favorite part about that whole story, though, was,
if you remember this, we lived upstairs from this certain
fraternity at Duke and they had come upstairs right at
the beginning of the school year and they were like, guys,
we just want to give you heads up. Sometimes we're
really loud and I we like to party. I hope
that doesn't bother you too much. And we're like, it's
cool whatever, and then like night three of being there
(05:44):
is when we did this bouncy ball thing and two
of the guys walked up from that frat and they
were like, guys, what is going on? And they walked
into a room and we were.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Like one, two, three, four or five except watching the
ball bounce between the floor and the ceiling. Yeah, boo
boo boom boo boo boo boo boo. It was such
a thrill, But that's what we were up to.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah, you're right, that seems like worthwhile curiosity to me anyway.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
So each episode for the series is going to take
a look at different aspects of curiosity, and we're kicking
things off with neuroscience and psychology, like what really goes
on in our brains when we experience curiosity, How does
that affect our minds and our behavior? And what does
all of this have to do with impulse shopping. But
before we get into the science, we asked our friend
Mitra to take her microphone around the streets of Brooklyn
(06:30):
to find out how some everyday people define curiosity.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Curiosity to me means interest, whether it's being curious about
a person, about a subject, about an object, whatever it is.
It means interest, I would say maybe excitement for the unknown.
Speaker 6 (06:52):
I think it's a discipline because I think it needs
to be cultivated, but like a discipline that ensures that
I am not doing the same thing over and over again,
and I'm staying open to new ideas, new places, new
thought processes.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Curiosity is the desire to learn, to keep evolving, changing,
collecting knowledge and insights some sort give.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
In my head right now, curiosities associate with like growth,
you know, just trying to expand and learn more.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
For me, it's an actual need.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
I don't think I can go a day without being
curious about almost everything.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
I guess curiosity is just acknowledging all the things you
don't know and letting yourself wonder about them instead of
being bummed you don't know it.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So I really like that quote that curiosity is desire
to learn to keep evolving and changing, because I one
thing I found with my grandparents and actually my great
grandmother is that they were most alive when they were curious,
you know, like they were reading the paper till the end.
My grandfather was learning this language kinda just because he
(08:05):
had a story he wanted to write. And he thought
it would be best written in that language, you know,
And so like, I think there's something incredible about curiosity
that is really life affirming.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It's also fun to watch people whose curiosity may be
exercised in a slightly different way than ours, Like for us,
I think most of the time it's just knowing information.
But I also love watching people who are maybe fascinated
by gear or how electronics work, or the types of
things that it's not really how my brain works.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I can't figure it out.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
But like watching somebody who's super into and it's like
this watch is broken, I'm going to open it up
myself and try to figure out how to fix it,
or that sort of curiosity. I just I love watching
people exercise their version of curiosity.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah. I mean I had an uncle who, uh in India,
microwaves weren't available in the seventies, I think, great indies,
and he went to the buy and got two microwaves
and one was to use and one was just to
take apart.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah that's so cool. No, I love that. That's pretty great.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So in terms of curiosity, when it comes to the
scientific definition, it's not as easy as you might think.
Some studies measure curiosity by tracking eye movement. In other words,
they're saying that if you choose to look at something,
that means you're curious about it. Many researchers define curiosity
as the self reported desire for information that has no
clear purpose or utility. Doctor Celeste Kidd is the director
(09:25):
of the Kid Lab at UC Berkeley, where she studies
curiosity and knowledge acquisition, and she says, there's actually one
big flaw with this approach.
Speaker 7 (09:34):
It's very hard to know in advance of encountering a
particular situation whether a particular piece of information is going
to be useful or not. A more concrete way of
saying that is, maybe, to example, you might for some
reason become fixated on tracking down a particular move that
you remember seeing Usher do in the early two thousands
(09:56):
and go on a deep dive trying to locate this clip.
You don't need that runny direct purpose. However, knowing that
piece of information could lead you to be interested in
other pieces of information that's serve a function later.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Okay, no disrespect to Usher, but I don't see how
tracking down an old video of him dancing would make
an impact on your life.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Well, clearly you haven't watched enough Usher, But what if
that video reawakens your love of dance, so you start
looking for adult dance classes in your area and eventually
quit your job and build a new career as a
backup dancer. What if the Usher video sends you down
a rabbit hole of nineties R and B and use
that knowledge to make a killer playlist for someone you're dating,
(10:37):
and that helps you eventually get married. I mean, they're
also got this whole.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Thing that I think you just explored your dream there,
and I mean it may seem a little far fetched,
but I guess stranger things have definitely happened.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, I mean, that's I guess Kid's point. Right. We
can't say with one hundred percent certainty that any given
piece of information won't have meaningful value in the future
because all of this is so subjective. Instead of trying
to land on one perfect clinical definition, it actually might
be simpler to focus on different flavors of curiosity. So
over the years, there have been various attempts at categorizing curiosity,
(11:11):
but one of the most prominent frameworks separates it into
two types, state versus trait curiosity.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Actually this came up just this morning because we were
looking at a list of the states, and I would say,
my biggest state curiosity is why is Arkansas pronounced that way?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Do we want to spend the rest of the episode
exploring that?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, I mean it's because it was derived from the
French name for native tribes who lived in the region.
The folks in Arkansas kept the French pronunciation and up
the river in Kansas they decided to anglicize it. But
that is not.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I love you knew the answer to that. That's impressive.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
State curiosity is when your curiosity is activated by a
particular topic or situation, Like if you realize that you
have a deep interest in the origin of place names,
that would be state curiosity. Trait curiosity is what it's
called when you're just naturally curious about lots of things.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So basically, some people are curious all the time, like
it's part of their personality, and then other people are
only curious when something comes along that.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
I don't know that really interests them exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
So I guess you and I would rank pretty high
on the trait curiosity scale.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yeah, definitely, I mean, it's why we do the show.
So as someone who experiences a lot of curiosity, one
of the things I wanted to know was why does
it feel so good to get an answer to a
question you're curious about, even if it's something you know
is kind of pointless. And according to doctor Kid, it's
because satisfying your curiosity releases all these feel good brain chemicals,
including dopamine, which is the newer transmitter that's associated with
(12:35):
feelings of pleasure and motivation, reward, all those things.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, I mean, I did some reading about that, and
there have actually been studies that try to show exactly
how this process works. So I think my favorite was
one where they put people in an MRI machine and
then they made them read trivia questions. It's kind of cool, right,
like a terrible trivia I'm glad I wasn't one of them,
but I'm also glad they did this. But perhaps unsurprisingly,
people who reported higher level of curiosity about the trivia
(13:02):
questions showed clear activation in the parts of the brain
associated with reward anticipation, so.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
They were all ready for that big dopamine hitting.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yes, that's exactly right, but brains are complicated, and our
brains on curiosity appear to be very complicated. For example,
in another experiment, people were shown blurry images, which made
them curious about what they were looking at until clear
versions of the images were finally revealed. Now, during that test,
researchers found the activation in the parts of the brain
related to unpleasant events. In other words, from a neurochemical standpoint,
(13:35):
curiosity can be a quest for that good feeling that
comes from getting information you really want, or it can
be more like an aversion, an attempt to avoid the
bad feeling of not knowing something. So in two thousand
and five, a psychologist named Jordan Littman suggested that there
are actually distinct types of curiosity, which he called interest
curiosity or eye curiosity, and deprivation curiosity or de curiosity.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
That's really fascinating. I can definitely think of times when
not knowing something has energized me, right like even late
at night you fall into a rival hole or whatever,
and you're more excited to learn. But other times, not
knowing the answer to a question can be really negative
and often a frustrating experience.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
And that's true, but remember curiosity isn't always tied to
specific questions. So as humans, we crave novelty, and if
our brains don't have enough stimulation in general, we can
also get really frustrated. Like I read about these experiments
at McGill University back in the nineteen fifties, where researchers
paid healthy college students twenty dollars a day to sit
in a room. They were comfortable, they had plenty of food,
(14:37):
but there was nothing to see, hear, or touch, and
for the first four to eight hours people were fine,
but then the need for stimulation, any kind of stimulation,
became pretty unbearable, so subjects were offered recordings of incredibly
boring material, like a lecture for kids on the dangers
of drinking or an outdated stock market report. One student
asked to listen to the drinking lecture twenty times and
(14:59):
a already hour period.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
That's how desperate he was.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Wow. So we really are hardwired for mental stimulation and
we want to engage with the world beyond ourselves.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
It's exactly right, And it seems that curiosity benefits our
brains in other ways beyond just boosting dopamine and helping
us avoid the discomfort of being uncertain or bored. Some
of those blurry image studies I mentioned earlier found the
link between curiosity and enhanced memory, so people had an
easier time recalling images that they saw when they were
curious about what they were looking at. So after we
(15:30):
take a quick break, we'll talk more about what triggers
curiosity and how that can affect everyday situations like drinking
oat milk and scrolling through cat photos online.
Speaker 8 (15:40):
So don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius. It is day one
of our week long dive into the fin phenomena of curiosity,
and I hope you've enjoyed what you've heard so far.
If you have, we are curious for how you feel
about the show. Please leave us a nice rating and
review and share this episode with a friend. We appreciate
it so much, so will. Before the break, we were
(16:16):
talking about how curiosity can give us a hit of dopamine.
It can also improve our memory and of course make
us better at trivia games. So if curiosity is so
good for us, why aren't we curious about everything all
the time. Well, Celeste Kid, the academic we were talking
to before, says that triggering curiosity requires a specific set
of conditions that vary from person to person.
Speaker 7 (16:39):
One of the things that we know from my lab's
research is that you are not just curious about anything.
Any information gap is not equally attractive. You are, in
particular drawn to resolve the information gaps that are just
right with respect to what you currently know. So the
things that are the most attractive were things that are
a little different from what you currently understand, but not
(17:02):
so different that it would be difficult to encode them.
I don't know the entire Swedish language, and while I
do think it would be cool if I learned some Swedish,
I'm not super motivated till I drop everything and do
that right now. Because I don't know any of it.
That makes it less attractive than learning something about a
topic that I have some background in.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And apparently the inverse is true too, so if we
think we already know everything about a topic, it's less
likely to make us curious. In a study involving trivia questions,
people who had no clue about the answers and people
who were confident they knew the answers were least curious
during the test. Curiosity was highest among participants who thought
they might have some idea about the answers. But weren't
(17:46):
entirely certain, you.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Know, I know when we would do live trivia events
and things like that related to mental flows. I always
thought that was fun, like that sort of the science
of coming up with just the perfect question. So people like,
maybe I don't know, I want to know that, but
I feel like maybe I could guess it, but I really.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Want to know the answer to that.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
So we know that certain things pique our curiosity more
than others, and that getting our curiosity satisfied rewards us
with a rush of dopamine. But actually wanted to know
how does all of this affect our behavior? And to
answer that question, we turn now to a group of
people who are extremely interested in this topic, marketing experts,
not scientists. Well, marketing often involves psychology and behavioral science,
(18:28):
and people who study consumer behavior spend a lot of
time thinking about curiosity because it's such a powerful motivator.
You obviously know the term impulse by right, Yeah, of course,
what's actually the last thing that you impulse bought?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I keep buying gadgets and gear related to tennis because
I'm like, oh, maybe this could help me improve a little,
but maybe this will dampen the strings. As I play
and I see some demonstration, I'm like, oh, yeah, maybe
I tried that out.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
I wish mine was healthy like that, and I could
make up one. But I'm going to be honest. It's
always just a candy bar, right, just always, always a
candy bar.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
What's so funny is you're so much more fit than.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
It's just they're so good, and you sit there and
you're like, I don't need it, but there it is,
and I haven't had that one, or it's like yesterday,
I was like, I bet it's been five years since
I've had a butterfinger.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
So I had a butterfinger. You know, it was curious.
It tastes still good, still good, same formula thing from
what I can tell.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
But anyway, obviously, sometimes we make impulse bies to satisfy
a different kind of need or want. So you're at
the checkout, you see that candy bar and you realize
you're hungry and that lunch isn't for another couple of hours.
But marketing studies have shown that curiosity itself is a
powerful driver of impulse purchasing that's really hard to resist.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Like you're at the checkout, you just ate lunch.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
But you see your favorite candy bar, has you know
some new seasonal pumpkin spice flavor?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Is it any good? You want to know? And there's
only one way to find out?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
And if I buy it, I got that little jewelt
of satisfaction from finding out what it tastes like. Even if,
like me, you don't like pumpkins.
Speaker 7 (20:00):
I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
We're probably gonna get so much hate mail for that,
but I feel the same way. And you know, because
curiosity in the quest for novelty do go hand in hand,
this can also plan to our enthusiasm for new brands
and new products. So several years ago, there was a
study that looked at what might motivate Americans to buy
plant based milk and also what might make them willing
to pay a premium for it, because plant milk is
(20:22):
often pricier than dairy. So the study authors came up
with a list of hypotheses like, you know, quote, people
are concerned about animal welfare and people think plant based
milk is better for the environment. Well, it turned out
that people did think it was worth paying more for
products that are environmentally friendly and good for animals, but overall,
these things didn't make them interested in picking up a
(20:44):
gallon of oat milk.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
But you want to know what did curiosity? You nailed it.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
People were motivated to buy plant based milk because they
were curious about it, and they were so curious, in fact,
that they'd said they'd be willing to pay higher prices
for it.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
But oat milk isn't even that, I mean, I guess not.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
But imagine how powerful this dynamic could be when you're
selling bigger ticket items or when you're trying to grab
people's attention, which, as you know, is a valuable commodity.
You remember, these curiosity gap hadlines that started popping up
everywhere back in twenty twelve twenty thirteen around that time.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
It's like what you and I did at the.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Top of the show, like this toddler grabbed a knife
and what happened next will shock you. I mean, it's
so stupid, but you end up clicking because you got
to know what that tyler did with that knife.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I mean, what did that toddler do?
Speaker 6 (21:32):
This?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
We're gon we're going to read after this episode.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Obviously, half the time that doesn't really shock you, right,
Like it's always like a letdown and it's total bit
and switch.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
But it works every time because that combination of curiosity
and strong emotion is almost irresistible. And we see this
tactic all around us, especially online. So producer Mary called
up one of the most online people we know, former
BuzzFeed editorial director Jack Sheppard. Jack told us that he
and his team tried to avoid curiosity g app headlines
because there's such a big risk of disappointing your audience.
(22:03):
You do it time and again and people stop trusting
your headlines, and then you know, it erodes that trust
and discourages sharing on social media. But he said they
did find other ways of using that powerful curiosity and
emotion combo to make things go viral.
Speaker 9 (22:18):
A type of post that I would do all the
time would be like one of my most popular posts
of BuzzFeed was the one hundred most important cat pictures.
Speaker 8 (22:24):
Of all time.
Speaker 9 (22:25):
I remember that, and you know, again, in terms of
like promising and delivering, like I don't want to say
that this was a serious journalism, but I spent days
making sure that each and every one of those one
hundred pictures was indeed important. The emotion that you're going
to experience is the emotion you experience when you see
something really cute and the curiosity is like, well, what's
(22:47):
the best one? You know, that's the classic curiosity of
a list like that, which one's made the cut? And
then another one would be an identity play, which is
something that we did a lot, things like twenty five Things.
You'll only end understand if you grew up the youngest sibling.
There's a curiosity play there too, exactly where it's like, Okay,
is this going to speak to my identity? Are they
(23:09):
going to say the thing that's like you never got
to sit in the front seat or whatever that actually
triggers that sort of real identity response, and then, of course,
in BuzzFeed's case, that eventually translated into quizzes. So that's
literally a question, you know, which avenger are you is?
You know, it's like I need to know. I want
to know which avenger I am.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I mean, it seems so obvious, right, but it sounds
like people put a lot of thought into how a
specific story or headline or type of content will elicit
curiosity in the audience.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, and you know we do it too, Like a
lot of our episode titles are questions as Jack was saying, though,
we always try to deliver what we promise, so if
you listen to the episode, you will in fact get
the answer to the question. But by appealing to your curiosity,
we're hoping to get your attention. So to take some
time away from your busy day and hang out with
us so you can learn a little something new and
(24:00):
hopefully something fun and ridiculous. And speaking of delivering on
what we promise every day, this week we have a
curiosity related activity for our listeners, and anyone who participates
will have a chance to win a part Time Genius
Prize pack. Mega you heard that, a part Time Genius
Prize pack. So today, inspired by our conversation with Jack,
we've made a quiz that is absolutely designed to activate
(24:21):
your curiosity and your sense of identity. It's called which
part Time Genius co host are you?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I bet people are wondering that for NonStop. Yeah, for years,
So it makes so many questions. Well, now you can
finally get the answer. So you take the quiz and
share your results with us on Instagram or Blue Sky
at Part Time Genius. We'll pick one person at random
to win a prize. Deadline is Sunday, October twenty sixth,
and all the details and links are in the show
notes and on our social media accounts.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Do you remember when we did that? It was like
Ben and Jerry's flavors that have been retired or paint
colors or something. And then I think Ben from Ben
and Jerry's took it and got like seven under.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, I didn't didn't get them all. That was so satisfied.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I'm really curious about I'm gonna be a will er Mango.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
After I take this question.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
You're gonna take the quiz. All right, I'll take it
with you. We compare results, but all right, we have
one last break. But when we come back, how technology
praise on our sense of deprivation curiosity and what we
can do about it, plus why it's so easy for
some of us to fall head first down research rabbit
holes don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Welcome back to part time genius.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Okay, Mango, you remember earlier I mentioned d curiosity or
deprivation curiosity, and it turns out a lot of apps
in social media are designed to trigger that particular type
of curiosity, that nagging sense that you have to know
what's happening and that you'll be deprived if you don't.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, I feel like it's almost like a type of fomo, right.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
It kind of, but it can feel more in tends
than that, Like all those pings and red notification alert
signals that something urgent and unknown is out there, even
though it's probably aunt susan posting or vacation photos or
pundit sharing a link to an article that we don't
even really want to read. Our brains know that there
is a chance something really important is going on, and
(26:18):
in the past, not paying attention to something urgent and
unknown could actually be life threatening, right, Like you don't
want to be the one person who doesn't see the
sabertooth tiger running down the hill or something scary like that.
So it's hard to override that instinct to grab your phone,
start scrolling, keep scrolling, and keep scrolling.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I mean, I feel like I know this all too well,
and I know that my phone kind of prays on me.
Are you saying there's no way to turn off this
type of curiosity?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
I mean maybe not, but we can read direct it
and neuroscientists have looked at this one. In particular, jud
Brewer wrote a great article about this, And here's what
he suggests. When you feel that urge to check your phone,
get curious about the urge itself. Ask yourself, what does
this feel like for me? Physically?
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Am I bored? Am I anxious?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Why did this particular notification seem so appealing? What this
does is pivot you away from the grip of d curiosity,
that feeling that you're missing out on something, and toward
the realm of eye curiosity or interest curiosity. So suddenly
you're operating from a place of wanting to learn more
on your own terms, instead of chasing after some sense
of satisfaction that you may never really get. Because there's
(27:24):
an infinite stream of content online, there will always be
more that you haven't seen, and you'll never be able
to consume at all.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
That's really good advice, although I know it's easier said
than done. Grappling with phone addiction is obviously a relatively
new phenomena. These bigger questions about the neuroscience and psychology
of curiosity are things that scientists have actually been thinking
about for centuries. Pavlov, you know the guy with the dogs.
He thought curiosity was a sort of reflex. The great
(27:52):
psychologist William James called curiosity the impulse towards better cognition,
placing it in the realm of knowledge and intellect. However
you view it, curiosity is a defining trait of human beings,
and according to Celeste kid, the defining nature of our
curiosity is how incredibly specific it can be.
Speaker 7 (28:11):
Human curiosity occupies a lot of our time trying to
resolve it. People get very very deep, they get very
very specific in curiosity is the driving force that allows
us to do that. The result is we as scientists,
we have reporters. We have people that specialize in Renaissance
(28:31):
era costuming. They know everything about the fabric. What this
means is that at a population level, we are much
smarter than even our closest evolutionary relatives. As a population,
we have an incredible wealth of knowledge that venovos and
chimps do not have that allow us to build computers
and build and flight planes. The cost of that is
(28:52):
that we've lost the basic knowledge we would need to
survive as individuals.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, I can't imagine there are many chimps that know
anything about Renaissance era or costuming. But we think about
the average chum can survive in the wild by itself
and a lot of us humans. We rely pretty heavily
on takeout.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah, that's right, And because we like to think about
highly specific ideas, humans have a tendency to fall down
curiosity rabbit holes. And that's when you start out with
a simple question like why do rabbits have long ears?
And the next thing you know, it's two hours later
you're reading an article about Chester Greenwood, the guy who
invented ear muffs. Right, and doctor Kid said, this happens
when the initial piece of information we want is difficult
(29:32):
to get, and as we work towards finding the answers
we want, we encounter additional information, maybe something we hadn't
even thought about before, and that opens up new questions
or ideas we want to explore. So these days, of course,
it's easier than ever to do this because we have
so much information at our fingertips. Wikipedia is probably one
of the best known rabbit holes sources on the Internet today,
and last year some researchers actually studied the site in
(29:55):
order to understand different patterns of curiosity. They tracked almost
half a million Wikipedia users around the world, and what
they found is that most people who go down Wikipedia
rabbit holes fit one of three types. Busybodies who zigzag
through a wide range of vaguely related topics, hunters who
are more focused and searching a smaller number of more
(30:16):
closely connected pages, And dancers, who take a more abstract approach.
They hop between unrelated topics in an attempt to find
new ideas and connections.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Which one of these do you feel like you identify
with most?
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I think I'm different things on different nights. Oh okay,
don't you. I mean, like, there are knights where you're
looking for something specific, and then the knights when you're
like hopping around.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
I guess so I do think the others may sound
more interesting, like I love the idea of some of
the others. I do think most of the time I
find myself in the hunter category if I'm being honest,
where there's just a thing that you're like searching for
and you're like, Okay, I'll learn more about that. I'll
learn more about that. I'll learn more about that. But
the other types are really fun. It's one of those
where it's like if you felt like you had more
(31:00):
hours in the day, I.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Think you're right. And I think also like because our
jobs involve learning so much all the time. It's very
specific information that we're seeking out totally. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:11):
So.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
One of the authors of the study is a University
of Pennsylvania network scientist named Danny Bassett, who's written extensively
about curiosity. They say it's not just about acquiring bits
of information, it's about forming connections between pieces of information,
a practice they call knowledge network building, and they believe
we can learn a lot more about curiosity by using
the tools of network science like mapping and modeling to
(31:34):
get a concrete picture of how the hunt for one
piece of information leads to another. In fact, it has
already been proven that our brains are capable of organizing
concepts into a map, and that's because we have specialized
neurons called grid cells that fire as we explore physical spaces,
recording and integrating information about location, direction, and distance. And
(31:55):
it turns out that navigating physical space and navigating information
light up similar regions in the brain. Isn't that insane?
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
So, who knows, Maybe someday we'll be able to plot
our next Wikipedia rabbit hole adventure in Google maps in
an app of the mind.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
It does sound really cool, but I am thinking this
app needs some privacy settings because no one needs to
know how much time I spent reading about the history
of pop rocks when I was supposed to be working
on this episode.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
How much time did you spend doing that.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
M I'd say that's between me and my browser, Maga.
But all right, mego before we call it a day,
we need to close that information gap. I left you
with the very beginning of this episode. What was Dylan
up to when we started recording? So are you ready
to find out?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You know? I'm so ready?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
All right over to you, Dylan.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Hey, guys, I was building a life size replica of
behavioral economist George Lowenstein, made entirely from marshmallows. I don't know.
I just thought it'd be a nice way to arm
the man who developed the information gap theory. Also, we
had a lot of marshmallows in the booth for some reason. Anyway,
great episode. I learned so much. But let's wrap it
up now. I want to make George into Smortars.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I not see that coming.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
So is your mind blown?
Speaker 8 (33:02):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Well, because you were such a good sport about.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Being left in suspense, Mango, I'm awarding you today's trophy.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
I'll accept it, but of course I have to share
with Dylan as long as he shares his s'mores.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
It looks like there's plenty to go around, so we
should be good. But that does it for today. Our
week long celebration of curiosity continues tomorrow, when we'll be
talking about the history of curiosity, from the Middle Ages
when it was considered a dangerous threat to society to
today when we're able to look up anything we want
on our phones. Plus we'll dig into the origin of
the creepy phrase curiosity killed the cat.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, I can't wait, and don't forget to take our
wich PTG co host are You Quiz and share the
results with us on Instagram or Blue Sky and go
our Genius. Be sure to follow us because we're doing
fun activities and giveaways all week. You do not want
to miss out. Thank you to the wonderful Metro but
Shahi for collecting field tape for us, And thanks to
(33:57):
doctor Celeste Kidd and Jack Sheppard for sharing their insights
today from Will Dylan, Mary Gabe and myself. Thank you
so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
(34:20):
of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will
Pearson and me Mongage Chatikler and researched by our good
pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced
by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell
and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
(34:43):
Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shory. For more podcasts from
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Guess what Will? What's that?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
If you've ever made a decision then wondered what might
have happened if you'd made a different decision, you've experienced
something called counterfactual curiosity. Is that something that's familiar to you?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Yeah, that means nothing for me. I mean when I
make up my mind, that is it. There is no
second guessing, Mango. Yeah, Well, you are very unusual, and
counterfactual curiosity is also unusual because, unlike other types of curiosity,
pursuing that line of thinking never leads to a reward.
Knowing what could have happened has zero real world benefit
(00:57):
unless you own a time machine, and often it has
negative impact because it makes you feel regret. So you
think that if there's something with no reward and a
high risk of negativity, you'd want to avoid it. But
studies have shown that just isn't true.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
In one test, people were shown in an animation of
a balloon and they had to choose a number of
times to pump the balloon, and if it burst, they lost,
if it stayed intact, they won. So Afterwards, participants were
given the option of seeing the correct number of pumps
that would have inflated the balloon without bursting it, and
over and over and over they requested that information, even
(01:31):
though they also reported that knowing the answer made them
feel worse if their guests had popped the balloon.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Wow, so that counterfactual curiosity was just too strong, unlike
the blown I suppose exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And today we are kicking off a week long series
all about curiosity, why we have it, how it changes
over the course of our lives, whether animals experience it,
and where that saying curiosity killed the cat really came from.
We've got lots of questions and all most as many answers,
So let's step in.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and as always I'm here with my good
friend Mangesh hot Ticket and Mango. You won't believe this
one thing our Palin producer, Dylan Fagan is doing over
there in the booth today.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
What's he doing?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
He's doing one thing that'll blow your mind.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Mango, I cannot see from where I'm saying. Will you
just tell me?
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Well, do you really want to know, yes, of course,
I want to know you sound that you actually sound
maybe a little bit annoyed.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I have annoyed.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, then my experiment is a success, Mango, I've successfully trapped.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
You in an information gap.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
That's a concept of curiosity, developed by behavioral economist George Lowenstein,
who incidentally is the great grandson of Sigmund Freud. Now,
according to him, curiosity is a form of cognitive deprivation
that occurs when you have some concrete information.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
But you don't feel like you have enough.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
So it's not a total absence of knowledge, but it
is an absence of satisfaction because the other key thing
is you're aware that this gap could potentially be filled.
So in your case, just now, I gave you a small,
but you know, super tantalizing piece of information, and I
told you that Dylan was doing a specific activity in
the booth. I made it clear that I knew what
(03:32):
it was that primed you for a sudden rush of curiosity. Now,
if I just said Dylan isn't here today, I don't
know where he is, you might still wonder what he's
up to, but you probably wouldn't feel that strong urge
to find out even though in the end it's the
same basic scenario. Dylan's doing something and you have no
idea what it is.
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Mango.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
That is fascinating. But also I have this feeling that
you're never going to tell me what he's doing.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
I'll tell you what at the end of the episode.
We'll have Dylan self fill you in.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
That is an incredible treat. It's a deal. Okay. So,
as I mentioned earlier, this is the beginning of our
week long exploration of curiosity. And I'm really excited because
you know, I think we both are curious people. Our
lives are animated by curiosity, right, Like it's such a
big part of our friendship too. I mean I know that,
(04:21):
like just hearing the topics you were fascinated by, like history, religion,
et cetera, and the classes you were interested in made
me want to befriend you because like you picked out
interesting things and you always had some like curious, fascinating
thing to talk about.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
It's kind of wild to think about We're going on
almost three decades of being curious about stuff together.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
When you think about that.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
First year dorm room in college and coming back from
those classes, like you mentioned, having learned something interesting. Cramming
into a dorm room with other friends and talking about
it almost makes me feel like we were a little
bit nerdy, But I can't decide.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, not at all, just the time.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
But you're right, it's the best feeling in the world
to learn something new, to have somebody share something that
they've learned, and just to exercise that curiosity.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
We were also curious about stupid things, right, like that
bouncy ball that came into our dorm room and our
senior year, and we would just like all of us,
wanted to see how many times you could bounce it
from the ground to the ceiling and just keep it going.
And we wanted to know what the limits of this
bouncy ball.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, and we had the strong arms to
test it out. My favorite part about that whole story, though, was,
if you remember this, we lived upstairs from this certain
fraternity at Duke and they had come upstairs right at
the beginning of the school year and they were like, guys,
we just want to give you heads up. Sometimes we're
really loud and I we like to party. I hope
that doesn't bother you too much. And we're like, it's
cool whatever, and then like night three of being there
(05:44):
is when we did this bouncy ball thing and two
of the guys walked up from that frat and they
were like, guys, what is going on? And they walked
into a room and we were.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Like one, two, three, four or five except watching the
ball bounce between the floor and the ceiling. Yeah, boo
boo boom boo boo boo boo boo. It was such
a thrill, But that's what we were up to.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
Yeah, you're right, that seems like worthwhile curiosity to me anyway.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
So each episode for the series is going to take
a look at different aspects of curiosity, and we're kicking
things off with neuroscience and psychology, like what really goes
on in our brains when we experience curiosity, How does
that affect our minds and our behavior? And what does
all of this have to do with impulse shopping. But
before we get into the science, we asked our friend
Mitra to take her microphone around the streets of Brooklyn
(06:30):
to find out how some everyday people define curiosity.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Curiosity to me means interest, whether it's being curious about
a person, about a subject, about an object, whatever it is.
It means interest, I would say maybe excitement for the unknown.
Speaker 6 (06:52):
I think it's a discipline because I think it needs
to be cultivated, but like a discipline that ensures that
I am not doing the same thing over and over again,
and I'm staying open to new ideas, new places, new
thought processes.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Curiosity is the desire to learn, to keep evolving, changing,
collecting knowledge and insights some sort give.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
In my head right now, curiosities associate with like growth,
you know, just trying to expand and learn more.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
For me, it's an actual need.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
I don't think I can go a day without being
curious about almost everything.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
I guess curiosity is just acknowledging all the things you
don't know and letting yourself wonder about them instead of
being bummed you don't know it.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So I really like that quote that curiosity is desire
to learn to keep evolving and changing, because I one
thing I found with my grandparents and actually my great
grandmother is that they were most alive when they were curious,
you know, like they were reading the paper till the end.
My grandfather was learning this language kinda just because he
(08:05):
had a story he wanted to write. And he thought
it would be best written in that language, you know,
And so like, I think there's something incredible about curiosity
that is really life affirming.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
It's also fun to watch people whose curiosity may be
exercised in a slightly different way than ours, Like for us,
I think most of the time it's just knowing information.
But I also love watching people who are maybe fascinated
by gear or how electronics work, or the types of
things that it's not really how my brain works.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I can't figure it out.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
But like watching somebody who's super into and it's like
this watch is broken, I'm going to open it up
myself and try to figure out how to fix it,
or that sort of curiosity. I just I love watching
people exercise their version of curiosity.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Yeah. I mean I had an uncle who, uh in India,
microwaves weren't available in the seventies, I think, great indies,
and he went to the buy and got two microwaves
and one was to use and one was just to
take apart.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah that's so cool. No, I love that. That's pretty great.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So in terms of curiosity, when it comes to the
scientific definition, it's not as easy as you might think.
Some studies measure curiosity by tracking eye movement. In other words,
they're saying that if you choose to look at something,
that means you're curious about it. Many researchers define curiosity
as the self reported desire for information that has no
clear purpose or utility. Doctor Celeste Kidd is the director
(09:25):
of the Kid Lab at UC Berkeley, where she studies
curiosity and knowledge acquisition, and she says, there's actually one
big flaw with this approach.
Speaker 7 (09:34):
It's very hard to know in advance of encountering a
particular situation whether a particular piece of information is going
to be useful or not. A more concrete way of
saying that is, maybe, to example, you might for some
reason become fixated on tracking down a particular move that
you remember seeing Usher do in the early two thousands
(09:56):
and go on a deep dive trying to locate this clip.
You don't need that runny direct purpose. However, knowing that
piece of information could lead you to be interested in
other pieces of information that's serve a function later.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Okay, no disrespect to Usher, but I don't see how
tracking down an old video of him dancing would make
an impact on your life.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Well, clearly you haven't watched enough Usher, But what if
that video reawakens your love of dance, so you start
looking for adult dance classes in your area and eventually
quit your job and build a new career as a
backup dancer. What if the Usher video sends you down
a rabbit hole of nineties R and B and use
that knowledge to make a killer playlist for someone you're dating,
(10:37):
and that helps you eventually get married. I mean, they're
also got this whole.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
Thing that I think you just explored your dream there,
and I mean it may seem a little far fetched,
but I guess stranger things have definitely happened.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, I mean, that's I guess Kid's point. Right. We
can't say with one hundred percent certainty that any given
piece of information won't have meaningful value in the future
because all of this is so subjective. Instead of trying
to land on one perfect clinical definition, it actually might
be simpler to focus on different flavors of curiosity. So
over the years, there have been various attempts at categorizing curiosity,
(11:11):
but one of the most prominent frameworks separates it into
two types, state versus trait curiosity.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Actually this came up just this morning because we were
looking at a list of the states, and I would say,
my biggest state curiosity is why is Arkansas pronounced that way?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Do we want to spend the rest of the episode
exploring that?
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, I mean it's because it was derived from the
French name for native tribes who lived in the region.
The folks in Arkansas kept the French pronunciation and up
the river in Kansas they decided to anglicize it. But
that is not.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I love you knew the answer to that. That's impressive.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
State curiosity is when your curiosity is activated by a
particular topic or situation, Like if you realize that you
have a deep interest in the origin of place names,
that would be state curiosity. Trait curiosity is what it's
called when you're just naturally curious about lots of things.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
So basically, some people are curious all the time, like
it's part of their personality, and then other people are
only curious when something comes along that.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
I don't know that really interests them exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
So I guess you and I would rank pretty high
on the trait curiosity scale.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Yeah, definitely, I mean, it's why we do the show.
So as someone who experiences a lot of curiosity, one
of the things I wanted to know was why does
it feel so good to get an answer to a
question you're curious about, even if it's something you know
is kind of pointless. And according to doctor Kid, it's
because satisfying your curiosity releases all these feel good brain chemicals,
including dopamine, which is the newer transmitter that's associated with
(12:35):
feelings of pleasure and motivation, reward, all those things.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah, I mean, I did some reading about that, and
there have actually been studies that try to show exactly
how this process works. So I think my favorite was
one where they put people in an MRI machine and
then they made them read trivia questions. It's kind of cool, right,
like a terrible trivia I'm glad I wasn't one of them,
but I'm also glad they did this. But perhaps unsurprisingly,
people who reported higher level of curiosity about the trivia
(13:02):
questions showed clear activation in the parts of the brain
associated with reward anticipation, so.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
They were all ready for that big dopamine hitting.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yes, that's exactly right, but brains are complicated, and our
brains on curiosity appear to be very complicated. For example,
in another experiment, people were shown blurry images, which made
them curious about what they were looking at until clear
versions of the images were finally revealed. Now, during that test,
researchers found the activation in the parts of the brain
related to unpleasant events. In other words, from a neurochemical standpoint,
(13:35):
curiosity can be a quest for that good feeling that
comes from getting information you really want, or it can
be more like an aversion, an attempt to avoid the
bad feeling of not knowing something. So in two thousand
and five, a psychologist named Jordan Littman suggested that there
are actually distinct types of curiosity, which he called interest
curiosity or eye curiosity, and deprivation curiosity or de curiosity.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
That's really fascinating. I can definitely think of times when
not knowing something has energized me, right like even late
at night you fall into a rival hole or whatever,
and you're more excited to learn. But other times, not
knowing the answer to a question can be really negative
and often a frustrating experience.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
And that's true, but remember curiosity isn't always tied to
specific questions. So as humans, we crave novelty, and if
our brains don't have enough stimulation in general, we can
also get really frustrated. Like I read about these experiments
at McGill University back in the nineteen fifties, where researchers
paid healthy college students twenty dollars a day to sit
in a room. They were comfortable, they had plenty of food,
(14:37):
but there was nothing to see, hear, or touch, and
for the first four to eight hours people were fine,
but then the need for stimulation, any kind of stimulation,
became pretty unbearable, so subjects were offered recordings of incredibly
boring material, like a lecture for kids on the dangers
of drinking or an outdated stock market report. One student
asked to listen to the drinking lecture twenty times and
(14:59):
a already hour period.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
That's how desperate he was.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Wow. So we really are hardwired for mental stimulation and
we want to engage with the world beyond ourselves.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
It's exactly right, And it seems that curiosity benefits our
brains in other ways beyond just boosting dopamine and helping
us avoid the discomfort of being uncertain or bored. Some
of those blurry image studies I mentioned earlier found the
link between curiosity and enhanced memory, so people had an
easier time recalling images that they saw when they were
curious about what they were looking at. So after we
(15:30):
take a quick break, we'll talk more about what triggers
curiosity and how that can affect everyday situations like drinking
oat milk and scrolling through cat photos online.
Speaker 8 (15:40):
So don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius. It is day one
of our week long dive into the fin phenomena of curiosity,
and I hope you've enjoyed what you've heard so far.
If you have, we are curious for how you feel
about the show. Please leave us a nice rating and
review and share this episode with a friend. We appreciate
it so much, so will. Before the break, we were
(16:16):
talking about how curiosity can give us a hit of dopamine.
It can also improve our memory and of course make
us better at trivia games. So if curiosity is so
good for us, why aren't we curious about everything all
the time. Well, Celeste Kid, the academic we were talking
to before, says that triggering curiosity requires a specific set
of conditions that vary from person to person.
Speaker 7 (16:39):
One of the things that we know from my lab's
research is that you are not just curious about anything.
Any information gap is not equally attractive. You are, in
particular drawn to resolve the information gaps that are just
right with respect to what you currently know. So the
things that are the most attractive were things that are
a little different from what you currently understand, but not
(17:02):
so different that it would be difficult to encode them.
I don't know the entire Swedish language, and while I
do think it would be cool if I learned some Swedish,
I'm not super motivated till I drop everything and do
that right now. Because I don't know any of it.
That makes it less attractive than learning something about a
topic that I have some background in.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
And apparently the inverse is true too, so if we
think we already know everything about a topic, it's less
likely to make us curious. In a study involving trivia questions,
people who had no clue about the answers and people
who were confident they knew the answers were least curious
during the test. Curiosity was highest among participants who thought
they might have some idea about the answers. But weren't
(17:46):
entirely certain, you.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
Know, I know when we would do live trivia events
and things like that related to mental flows. I always
thought that was fun, like that sort of the science
of coming up with just the perfect question. So people like,
maybe I don't know, I want to know that, but
I feel like maybe I could guess it, but I really.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Want to know the answer to that.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
So we know that certain things pique our curiosity more
than others, and that getting our curiosity satisfied rewards us
with a rush of dopamine. But actually wanted to know
how does all of this affect our behavior? And to
answer that question, we turn now to a group of
people who are extremely interested in this topic, marketing experts,
not scientists. Well, marketing often involves psychology and behavioral science,
(18:28):
and people who study consumer behavior spend a lot of
time thinking about curiosity because it's such a powerful motivator.
You obviously know the term impulse by right, Yeah, of course,
what's actually the last thing that you impulse bought?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I keep buying gadgets and gear related to tennis because
I'm like, oh, maybe this could help me improve a little,
but maybe this will dampen the strings. As I play
and I see some demonstration, I'm like, oh, yeah, maybe
I tried that out.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
I wish mine was healthy like that, and I could
make up one. But I'm going to be honest. It's
always just a candy bar, right, just always, always a
candy bar.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
What's so funny is you're so much more fit than.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
It's just they're so good, and you sit there and
you're like, I don't need it, but there it is,
and I haven't had that one, or it's like yesterday,
I was like, I bet it's been five years since
I've had a butterfinger.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
So I had a butterfinger. You know, it was curious.
It tastes still good, still good, same formula thing from
what I can tell.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
But anyway, obviously, sometimes we make impulse bies to satisfy
a different kind of need or want. So you're at
the checkout, you see that candy bar and you realize
you're hungry and that lunch isn't for another couple of hours.
But marketing studies have shown that curiosity itself is a
powerful driver of impulse purchasing that's really hard to resist.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Like you're at the checkout, you just ate lunch.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
But you see your favorite candy bar, has you know
some new seasonal pumpkin spice flavor?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Is it any good? You want to know? And there's
only one way to find out?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
And if I buy it, I got that little jewelt
of satisfaction from finding out what it tastes like. Even if,
like me, you don't like pumpkins.
Speaker 7 (20:00):
I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
I'm with you.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
We're probably gonna get so much hate mail for that,
but I feel the same way. And you know, because
curiosity in the quest for novelty do go hand in hand,
this can also plan to our enthusiasm for new brands
and new products. So several years ago, there was a
study that looked at what might motivate Americans to buy
plant based milk and also what might make them willing
to pay a premium for it, because plant milk is
(20:22):
often pricier than dairy. So the study authors came up
with a list of hypotheses like, you know, quote, people
are concerned about animal welfare and people think plant based
milk is better for the environment. Well, it turned out
that people did think it was worth paying more for
products that are environmentally friendly and good for animals, but overall,
these things didn't make them interested in picking up a
(20:44):
gallon of oat milk.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
But you want to know what did curiosity? You nailed it.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
People were motivated to buy plant based milk because they
were curious about it, and they were so curious, in fact,
that they'd said they'd be willing to pay higher prices
for it.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
But oat milk isn't even that, I mean, I guess not.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
But imagine how powerful this dynamic could be when you're
selling bigger ticket items or when you're trying to grab
people's attention, which, as you know, is a valuable commodity.
You remember, these curiosity gap hadlines that started popping up
everywhere back in twenty twelve twenty thirteen around that time.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
It's like what you and I did at the.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
Top of the show, like this toddler grabbed a knife
and what happened next will shock you. I mean, it's
so stupid, but you end up clicking because you got
to know what that tyler did with that knife.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I mean, what did that toddler do?
Speaker 6 (21:32):
This?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
We're gon we're going to read after this episode.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Obviously, half the time that doesn't really shock you, right,
Like it's always like a letdown and it's total bit
and switch.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
But it works every time because that combination of curiosity
and strong emotion is almost irresistible. And we see this
tactic all around us, especially online. So producer Mary called
up one of the most online people we know, former
BuzzFeed editorial director Jack Sheppard. Jack told us that he
and his team tried to avoid curiosity g app headlines
because there's such a big risk of disappointing your audience.
(22:03):
You do it time and again and people stop trusting
your headlines, and then you know, it erodes that trust
and discourages sharing on social media. But he said they
did find other ways of using that powerful curiosity and
emotion combo to make things go viral.
Speaker 9 (22:18):
A type of post that I would do all the
time would be like one of my most popular posts
of BuzzFeed was the one hundred most important cat pictures.
Speaker 8 (22:24):
Of all time.
Speaker 9 (22:25):
I remember that, and you know, again, in terms of
like promising and delivering, like I don't want to say
that this was a serious journalism, but I spent days
making sure that each and every one of those one
hundred pictures was indeed important. The emotion that you're going
to experience is the emotion you experience when you see
something really cute and the curiosity is like, well, what's
(22:47):
the best one? You know, that's the classic curiosity of
a list like that, which one's made the cut? And
then another one would be an identity play, which is
something that we did a lot, things like twenty five Things.
You'll only end understand if you grew up the youngest sibling.
There's a curiosity play there too, exactly where it's like, Okay,
is this going to speak to my identity? Are they
(23:09):
going to say the thing that's like you never got
to sit in the front seat or whatever that actually
triggers that sort of real identity response, and then, of course,
in BuzzFeed's case, that eventually translated into quizzes. So that's
literally a question, you know, which avenger are you is?
You know, it's like I need to know. I want
to know which avenger I am.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
I mean, it seems so obvious, right, but it sounds
like people put a lot of thought into how a
specific story or headline or type of content will elicit
curiosity in the audience.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, and you know we do it too, Like a
lot of our episode titles are questions as Jack was saying, though,
we always try to deliver what we promise, so if
you listen to the episode, you will in fact get
the answer to the question. But by appealing to your curiosity,
we're hoping to get your attention. So to take some
time away from your busy day and hang out with
us so you can learn a little something new and
(24:00):
hopefully something fun and ridiculous. And speaking of delivering on
what we promise every day, this week we have a
curiosity related activity for our listeners, and anyone who participates
will have a chance to win a part Time Genius
Prize pack. Mega you heard that, a part Time Genius
Prize pack. So today, inspired by our conversation with Jack,
we've made a quiz that is absolutely designed to activate
(24:21):
your curiosity and your sense of identity. It's called which
part Time Genius co host are you?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:27):
I bet people are wondering that for NonStop. Yeah, for years,
So it makes so many questions. Well, now you can
finally get the answer. So you take the quiz and
share your results with us on Instagram or Blue Sky
at Part Time Genius. We'll pick one person at random
to win a prize. Deadline is Sunday, October twenty sixth,
and all the details and links are in the show
notes and on our social media accounts.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Do you remember when we did that? It was like
Ben and Jerry's flavors that have been retired or paint
colors or something. And then I think Ben from Ben
and Jerry's took it and got like seven under.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, I didn't didn't get them all. That was so satisfied.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
I'm really curious about I'm gonna be a will er Mango.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
After I take this question.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
You're gonna take the quiz. All right, I'll take it
with you. We compare results, but all right, we have
one last break. But when we come back, how technology
praise on our sense of deprivation curiosity and what we
can do about it, plus why it's so easy for
some of us to fall head first down research rabbit
holes don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Welcome back to part time genius.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Okay, Mango, you remember earlier I mentioned d curiosity or
deprivation curiosity, and it turns out a lot of apps
in social media are designed to trigger that particular type
of curiosity, that nagging sense that you have to know
what's happening and that you'll be deprived if you don't.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, I feel like it's almost like a type of fomo, right.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
It kind of, but it can feel more in tends
than that, Like all those pings and red notification alert
signals that something urgent and unknown is out there, even
though it's probably aunt susan posting or vacation photos or
pundit sharing a link to an article that we don't
even really want to read. Our brains know that there
is a chance something really important is going on, and
(26:18):
in the past, not paying attention to something urgent and
unknown could actually be life threatening, right, Like you don't
want to be the one person who doesn't see the
sabertooth tiger running down the hill or something scary like that.
So it's hard to override that instinct to grab your phone,
start scrolling, keep scrolling, and keep scrolling.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I mean, I feel like I know this all too well,
and I know that my phone kind of prays on me.
Are you saying there's no way to turn off this
type of curiosity?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
I mean maybe not, but we can read direct it
and neuroscientists have looked at this one. In particular, jud
Brewer wrote a great article about this, And here's what
he suggests. When you feel that urge to check your phone,
get curious about the urge itself. Ask yourself, what does
this feel like for me? Physically?
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Am I bored? Am I anxious?
Speaker 3 (27:02):
Why did this particular notification seem so appealing? What this
does is pivot you away from the grip of d curiosity,
that feeling that you're missing out on something, and toward
the realm of eye curiosity or interest curiosity. So suddenly
you're operating from a place of wanting to learn more
on your own terms, instead of chasing after some sense
of satisfaction that you may never really get. Because there's
(27:24):
an infinite stream of content online, there will always be
more that you haven't seen, and you'll never be able
to consume at all.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
That's really good advice, although I know it's easier said
than done. Grappling with phone addiction is obviously a relatively
new phenomena. These bigger questions about the neuroscience and psychology
of curiosity are things that scientists have actually been thinking
about for centuries. Pavlov, you know the guy with the dogs.
He thought curiosity was a sort of reflex. The great
(27:52):
psychologist William James called curiosity the impulse towards better cognition,
placing it in the realm of knowledge and intellect. However
you view it, curiosity is a defining trait of human beings,
and according to Celeste kid, the defining nature of our
curiosity is how incredibly specific it can be.
Speaker 7 (28:11):
Human curiosity occupies a lot of our time trying to
resolve it. People get very very deep, they get very
very specific in curiosity is the driving force that allows
us to do that. The result is we as scientists,
we have reporters. We have people that specialize in Renaissance
(28:31):
era costuming. They know everything about the fabric. What this
means is that at a population level, we are much
smarter than even our closest evolutionary relatives. As a population,
we have an incredible wealth of knowledge that venovos and
chimps do not have that allow us to build computers
and build and flight planes. The cost of that is
(28:52):
that we've lost the basic knowledge we would need to
survive as individuals.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Yeah, I can't imagine there are many chimps that know
anything about Renaissance era or costuming. But we think about
the average chum can survive in the wild by itself
and a lot of us humans. We rely pretty heavily
on takeout.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Yeah, that's right, And because we like to think about
highly specific ideas, humans have a tendency to fall down
curiosity rabbit holes. And that's when you start out with
a simple question like why do rabbits have long ears?
And the next thing you know, it's two hours later
you're reading an article about Chester Greenwood, the guy who
invented ear muffs. Right, and doctor Kid said, this happens
when the initial piece of information we want is difficult
(29:32):
to get, and as we work towards finding the answers
we want, we encounter additional information, maybe something we hadn't
even thought about before, and that opens up new questions
or ideas we want to explore. So these days, of course,
it's easier than ever to do this because we have
so much information at our fingertips. Wikipedia is probably one
of the best known rabbit holes sources on the Internet today,
and last year some researchers actually studied the site in
(29:55):
order to understand different patterns of curiosity. They tracked almost
half a million Wikipedia users around the world, and what
they found is that most people who go down Wikipedia
rabbit holes fit one of three types. Busybodies who zigzag
through a wide range of vaguely related topics, hunters who
are more focused and searching a smaller number of more
(30:16):
closely connected pages, And dancers, who take a more abstract approach.
They hop between unrelated topics in an attempt to find
new ideas and connections.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Which one of these do you feel like you identify
with most?
Speaker 1 (30:29):
I think I'm different things on different nights. Oh okay,
don't you. I mean, like, there are knights where you're
looking for something specific, and then the knights when you're
like hopping around.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
I guess so I do think the others may sound
more interesting, like I love the idea of some of
the others. I do think most of the time I
find myself in the hunter category if I'm being honest,
where there's just a thing that you're like searching for
and you're like, Okay, I'll learn more about that. I'll
learn more about that. I'll learn more about that. But
the other types are really fun. It's one of those
where it's like if you felt like you had more
(31:00):
hours in the day, I.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Think you're right. And I think also like because our
jobs involve learning so much all the time. It's very
specific information that we're seeking out totally. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:11):
So.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
One of the authors of the study is a University
of Pennsylvania network scientist named Danny Bassett, who's written extensively
about curiosity. They say it's not just about acquiring bits
of information, it's about forming connections between pieces of information,
a practice they call knowledge network building, and they believe
we can learn a lot more about curiosity by using
the tools of network science like mapping and modeling to
(31:34):
get a concrete picture of how the hunt for one
piece of information leads to another. In fact, it has
already been proven that our brains are capable of organizing
concepts into a map, and that's because we have specialized
neurons called grid cells that fire as we explore physical spaces,
recording and integrating information about location, direction, and distance. And
(31:55):
it turns out that navigating physical space and navigating information
light up similar regions in the brain. Isn't that insane?
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:03):
So, who knows, Maybe someday we'll be able to plot
our next Wikipedia rabbit hole adventure in Google maps in
an app of the mind.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
It does sound really cool, but I am thinking this
app needs some privacy settings because no one needs to
know how much time I spent reading about the history
of pop rocks when I was supposed to be working
on this episode.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
How much time did you spend doing that.
Speaker 3 (32:24):
M I'd say that's between me and my browser, Maga.
But all right, mego before we call it a day,
we need to close that information gap. I left you
with the very beginning of this episode. What was Dylan
up to when we started recording? So are you ready
to find out?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You know? I'm so ready?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
All right over to you, Dylan.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
Hey, guys, I was building a life size replica of
behavioral economist George Lowenstein, made entirely from marshmallows. I don't know.
I just thought it'd be a nice way to arm
the man who developed the information gap theory. Also, we
had a lot of marshmallows in the booth for some reason. Anyway,
great episode. I learned so much. But let's wrap it
up now. I want to make George into Smortars.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
I not see that coming.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
So is your mind blown?
Speaker 8 (33:02):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Well, because you were such a good sport about.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
Being left in suspense, Mango, I'm awarding you today's trophy.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Congratulations.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
I'll accept it, but of course I have to share
with Dylan as long as he shares his s'mores.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
It looks like there's plenty to go around, so we
should be good. But that does it for today. Our
week long celebration of curiosity continues tomorrow, when we'll be
talking about the history of curiosity, from the Middle Ages
when it was considered a dangerous threat to society to
today when we're able to look up anything we want
on our phones. Plus we'll dig into the origin of
the creepy phrase curiosity killed the cat.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Yeah, I can't wait, and don't forget to take our
wich PTG co host are You Quiz and share the
results with us on Instagram or Blue Sky and go
our Genius. Be sure to follow us because we're doing
fun activities and giveaways all week. You do not want
to miss out. Thank you to the wonderful Metro but
Shahi for collecting field tape for us, And thanks to
(33:57):
doctor Celeste Kidd and Jack Sheppard for sharing their insights
today from Will Dylan, Mary Gabe and myself. Thank you
so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
(34:20):
of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will
Pearson and me Mongage Chatikler and researched by our good
pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced
by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell
and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
(34:43):
Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shory. For more podcasts from
Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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