IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0257011.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Curiosity or savouring? Information seeking is modulated by both uncertainty and valence

Author

Listed:
  • Lieke L F van Lieshout
  • Iris J Traast
  • Floris P de Lange
  • Roshan Cools

Abstract

Curiosity is pervasive in our everyday lives, but we know little about the factors that contribute to this drive. In the current study, we assessed whether curiosity about uncertain outcomes is modulated by the valence of the information, i.e. whether the information is good or bad news. Using a lottery task in which outcome uncertainty, expected value and outcome valence (gain versus loss) were manipulated independently, we found that curiosity is overall higher for gains compared with losses and that curiosity increased with increasing outcome uncertainty for both gains and losses. These effects of uncertainty and valence did not interact, indicating that the motivation to reduce uncertainty and the motivation to maximize positive information represent separate, independent drives.

Suggested Citation

  • Lieke L F van Lieshout & Iris J Traast & Floris P de Lange & Roshan Cools, 2021. "Curiosity or savouring? Information seeking is modulated by both uncertainty and valence," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(9), pages 1-19, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0257011
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0257011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0257011
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0257011&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0257011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lieke L. F. van Lieshout & Floris P. de Lange & Roshan Cools, 2019. "Motives underlying human curiosity," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 3(6), pages 550-551, June.
    2. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. Bürkner, Paul-Christian, 2017. "brms: An R Package for Bayesian Multilevel Models Using Stan," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 80(i01).
    4. Stigler, George J., 2011. "Economics of Information," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 5, pages 35-49.
    5. Nathaniel D. Daw & John P. O'Doherty & Peter Dayan & Ben Seymour & Raymond J. Dolan, 2006. "Cortical substrates for exploratory decisions in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 441(7095), pages 876-879, June.
    6. Shane Frederick & George Loewenstein & Ted O'Donoghue, 2002. "Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(2), pages 351-401, June.
    7. Bruno B Averbeck, 2015. "Theory of Choice in Bandit, Information Sampling and Foraging Tasks," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(3), pages 1-28, March.
    8. Tali Sharot & Cass R. Sunstein, 2020. "How people decide what they want to know," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(1), pages 14-19, January.
    9. Niklas Karlsson & George Loewenstein & Duane Seppi, 2009. "The ostrich effect: Selective attention to information," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 95-115, April.
    10. Russell Golman & David Hagmann & George Loewenstein, 2017. "Information Avoidance," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(1), pages 96-135, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aharon, David Y. & Qadan, Mahmoud, 2020. "When do retail investors pay attention to their trading platforms?," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    2. Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & John Gathergood & George Loewenstein & Neil Stewart, 2020. "Attention Utility: Evidence from Individual Investors," CESifo Working Paper Series 8091, CESifo.
    3. Xavier Gabaix, 2017. "Behavioral Inattention," NBER Working Papers 24096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Christopher. A. Kelly & Tali Sharot, 2021. "Individual differences in information-seeking," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-13, December.
    5. Horn, Samantha & Litovsky, Yana & Loewenstein, George, 2024. "Using curiosity to counter health information avoidance," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    6. Marianne Andries & Valentin Haddad, 2020. "Information Aversion," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(5), pages 1901-1939.
    7. Edenbrandt, Anna Kristina & Lagerkvist, Carl Johan & Nordström, Jonas, 2021. "Interested, indifferent or active information avoiders of carbon labels: Cognitive dissonance and ascription of responsibility as motivating factors," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    8. Daniel Bennett & Stefan Bode & Maja Brydevall & Hayley Warren & Carsten Murawski, 2016. "Intrinsic Valuation of Information in Decision Making under Uncertainty," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-21, July.
    9. Petrishcheva, Vasilisa, 2023. "Willful Ignorance and Reference Dependence of Self-Image Concerns," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277591, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Aharon, David Y. & Qadan, Mahmoud, 2018. "What drives the demand for information in the commodity market?," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 532-543.
    11. Gaia Molinaro & Irene Cogliati Dezza & Sarah Katharina Bühler & Christina Moutsiana & Tali Sharot, 2023. "Multifaceted information-seeking motives in children," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    12. Ungureanu, S., 2015. "Inefficient Reallocation, Loss Aversion and Prospect Theory," Working Papers 8124, Department of Economics, City University London.
    13. Lane, Tom, 2022. "Intrinsic preferences for unhappy news," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 119-130.
    14. van den Bergh, J.C.J.M. & Botzen, W.J.W., 2015. "Monetary valuation of the social cost of CO2 emissions: A critical survey," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 33-46.
    15. Castilla, Carolina & Haab, Timothy C., 2010. "Asymmetric Search and Loss Aversion: Choice Experiment on Consumer Willingness to Search in the Gasoline Retail Market," 2010 Annual Meeting, July 25-27, 2010, Denver, Colorado 61672, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. Stephen L. Cheung & Agnieszka Tymula & Xueting Wang, 2022. "Present bias for monetary and dietary rewards," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1202-1233, September.
    17. Romain Espinosa & Thibaut Arpinon & Paco Maginot & Sébastien Demange & Florimond Peureux, 2024. "Removing barriers to plant-based diets: assisting doctors with vegan patients," Post-Print hal-04479493, HAL.
    18. al-Nowaihi, Ali & Dhami, Sanjit, 2006. "A note on the Loewenstein-Prelec theory of intertemporal choice," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 99-108, July.
    19. Ida, Takanori & Goto, Rei & Takahashi, Yuko & Nishimura, Shuzo, 2011. "Can economic-psychological parameters predict successful smoking cessation?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 285-295, May.
    20. Grund, Christian, 2011. "Job Preferences as Revealed by Employee Initiated Job Changes," IZA Discussion Papers 6127, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0257011. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.