Curiosity why

Livio: Not necessarily. There have been all kinds of experiments in neuroscience with functional MRI, where they make people curious then put them in these MRI machines and see which parts of their brains are activated.

Knowledge Wharton: When you think historically, there have been world leaders who have wanted to snuff out curiosity.

Some people would say President Trump is trying to do that. Have you seen that as a component in the world? Livio: Of course. We all know about the Middle Ages, the medieval times when curiosity was almost taken out of existence. It was mostly the church that wanted to convey to the masses the feeling that everything worth knowing is already known. They built walls around all types of knowledge and really oppressed curiosity in this way.

The Taliban destroyed works of art. There have been book burnings over the years. The Nazis made a degenerate art exhibit where they tried to deface all the modern painters.

There definitely have been oppressive regimes and ideologies that try to stifle curiosity. Livio: Yes. I mentioned already two of those types of curiosity: perceptual and epistemic. There is also something that has been dubbed diversive curiosity. There is a negative to diversive curiosity because your attention is turned away. But there is the element of searching or looking for information. They connect with friends.

They connect with people, sometimes across countries. Knowledge Wharton: Do you think it affects curiosity in general because it has become such an attractive piece to our society? Livio: That may have eventually some negative consequences if people just stay at home and connect through all kinds of digital devices.

I can see all kinds of shortcomings for that type of a society. But at the same time, the really important questions like advances in science and so on cannot be found through digital devices. Knowledge Wharton: You take time in the book to really delve into the science of this. Tell us what you found and why science has been so intrigued by this.

This has been research by psychologists, cognitive scientists and neuroscientists. There are two parts to this. One is to understand our state of mind when we are curious. I alluded to that in that one type of curiosity creates an unpleasant sensation and another creates an anticipation of reward. It was found that especially the epistemic curiosity, when we try to learn new things, it really follows the paths of reward of dopamine, which is this neural transmitter that is associated with reward in our brains.

Curiosity helps strengthen relationships. This implies that demonstrating curiosity towards someone is a great way to build your closeness with them. Curiosity improves healthcare. Emily J. Campbell, Ph. During her entire graduate program, she worked as a research associate on the education team at the Greater Good Science Center.

In terms of our evolution, it makes sense for humans to be curious about the world around them. View Larger Image Getty Images. Curiosity and learning Emerging research on curiosity suggests curiosity is linked to problem solving and creativity. View Larger Image Stanton Street.

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This means that the content may be streamed from YouTube but specifically forbids downloading, adaptation, and redistribution, except where otherwise licensed. To answer these questions, he led a large-scale observation study of 1, children. He got the kids to take the test at age 5, 10, and What about adults?

Science suggests that this dramatic decrease in curiosity could be caused by our increase in knowledge as we grow up. But why should we care? Based on the results above, it seems like most adults go about their lives without any effort to foster their curiosity.