Here's Why Curious People Might Live With Less Fear

Psychologist William Whitecross breaks down the curiosity driven mindset and its many benefits.

By Mark Travers, Ph.D. | June 2, 2023

A new study published in Journal of Research in Personality explains how looking at the world with curiosity might shield you from feeling uncertain and anxious.

I recently spoke to psychologist William Whitecross of the Australian National University to understand the dichotomous nature of curiosity and how it can help turn anxious rumination into problem-solving.

What prompted you to investigate the topic of curiosity and its relationship with uncertainty?

I was inspired to do this study because I was interested in the fact that curiosity is, at the same time, a love of the unknown (liking mysteries and questions) but also an intolerance of the unknown (because you don't want to leave the mystery unsolved – you want the answer).

I thought "how could this be?" How could curiosity be both at once? I wanted to understand this apparent paradox. So, I guess you could say I was curious about being curious.

My other inspiration was the fact that uncertainty is everywhere in our lives and as a result the way we respond to uncertainty – whether with curiosity or with another response – is very important because we have these reactions every day.

We're used to hearing about many negative reactions to uncertainty, and a lot of psychological research focuses on these negative reactions.

We've all heard of things like fear of the unknown, getting angry and confused about what we don't understand, and that people sometimes feel threatened by things that seem new, different, or unusual.

But curiosity isn't like these other responses. Curiosity is special. A curious response entails wanting to learn and understand the unknown, and counteracts our impulses to avoid, fear, judge, and attack what we don't understand. Curiosity also gives us the confidence to embrace new things in order to learn and grow.

It's a lovely reaction to uncertainty in many regards, and for that reason I wanted to better understand how curious people think and feel about uncertainty.

Alain de Botton, the author of The School of Life, has an interesting take on curiosity. He says, "Curiosity takes ignorance seriously, and is confident enough to admit when it does not know. It is aware of not knowing, and it sets out to do something about it."

Could you expand on the concepts of interest and deprivation in your research for our readers? What did you already know about their relationship with uncertainty going into your study?

The key thing to understand is that curiosity is a feeling that motivates us to learn new things. You can think of it as like a force inside of us that attracts us to the unknown and gives us a hunger for knowledge.

However, curiosity is not one specific feeling – instead, the word "curiosity" covers multiple feelings.

In psychological research, we refer to these different feelings as different types of curiosity – different psychological motivations to acquire knowledge. Each aims to satisfy different psychological needs.

Interest is the desire to learn aimed at stimulating enjoyment. It's a positive feeling of curiosity – the feeling of excitement or enthusiasm about what we could learn or discover. In everyday language, we might also use words like "fascination," "wonder," or "intrigue" to refer to this feeling.

For instance, the look of wonder a child has when they see an octopus at an aquarium is indicative of the child's interest in learning more about the animal and its environment.

Deprivation is in many regards the opposite to interest – it's the desire to learn aimed at reducing negative feelings associated with ignorance and incomprehension. Deprivation is a negative (or unpleasant) feeling of curiosity – that annoying or frustrating feeling that you don't understand something.

Deprivation works by conjuring a determination inside us to acquire that missing knowledge in order to rid ourselves of that annoying feeling. The reason it's called deprivation is because it feels as if you're lacking information that you just need to know – like a mental itch you just need to scratch. If you've ever been on a trivia team and felt like the answer to a trivia question is on the tip of your tongue but you just cannot figure it out – that's deprivation curiosity.

What was the methodology of your study? What would you say was your most critical finding?

Study participants completed an online survey filled with questions designed to measure their levels of trait curiosity (both interest- and deprivation-type) and understand how they tend to think and feel about uncertainty (their attitudes towards uncertainty).

Our most critical finding was this: although interest and deprivation are both types of curiosity that compel us to approach and learn about the unknown, they are related to starkly different ways of thinking and feeling about uncertainty.

In general, people with higher interest-type curiosity tended to view uncertainty as an opportunity, while those with higher deprivation-type curiosity were more likely to view uncertainty as a threat.

We found that people who score highly on interest tend to hold more positive attitudes towards uncertainty, meaning they tend to be more optimistic, happy, and comfortable with the unknown.

Their attitudes towards uncertainty are more positive in two key ways:

They enjoy how it feels to be uncertain more than others. For example, they enjoy having a mystery to wonder about or an unanswered question to ponder. This is a significant finding because it suggests that the joy of interest-type curiosity doesn't just happen at the end when curiosity is satisfied (when you solve the mystery) but also happens along the way (during the process of pondering the question).
We found that people high on interest-type curiosity also tend to think more optimistically in uncertain situations. That is, they usually focus more on positive possibilities rather than negative ones. For instance, when they encounter an opportunity to learn, they tend to think "I could discover something amazing!" rather than "I might discover something bad."

For deprivation, we found the opposite pattern of results. People who score highly on deprivation tend to hold more negative attitudes towards uncertainty, meaning they tend to be more pessimistic, agitated, and uncomfortable with the unknown.

Their attitudes towards uncertainty are more negative in two key ways:

They do not enjoy how it feels to be uncertain
They tend to think pessimistically by focusing more on negative possibilities rather than positive ones

These findings are significant because they suggest that deprivation-type curiosity motivates us to learn in two distinct ways:

By making us feel a little unsettled by the presence of uncertainty
By encouraging us to reflect on negative possibilities and thus treat learning as an opportunity to feel either reassured (if the negative possibility turns out to not be true) or prepared (if it turns out to be true)

As you can see, although interest and deprivation are both forces of curiosity, they appear to work in very different ways. Interest is linked to enjoying uncertainty and focusing on potential positive discoveries, while deprivation is linked to disliking uncertainty and focusing on potential negative discoveries.

Would you say that, between the two types of curiosities your study focuses on, one is better than the other?

Not exactly. Although deprivation-curiosity may not be as fun as interest-curiosity, this doesn't make it worse. Both interest and deprivation are real and natural feelings of curiosity that encourage us to learn and deepen our understanding. Both should be embraced as normal feelings of curiosity.

Another important point is that it's highly likely that interest and deprivation have unique advantages over one another in different contexts.

For example, our findings show that interest is related to more optimistic thinking whereas deprivation is related to pessimistic thinking, both of which can be beneficial in different circumstances.

As another example, other research suggests that interest is more strongly related to creative thinking whereas deprivation is more strongly related to persevering with a problem for a long time.

Are there any practical takeaways from your research for the layperson who has to deal with uncertainty on a regular basis?

One practical takeaway from our study is that although uncertainty is everywhere in life (and that can be very daunting), human beings are not fated to react to uncertainty with fear or anger.

There is a part of our mind that wants to approach the unknown and learn about it. You just need to tap into it. In particular, when it comes to counteracting anxiety, we probably want to try stimulating interest, not deprivation.

This can be done with everyday curiosity because it often is a blend of both interest and deprivation, so it's possible to focus on one more than the other. The key thing to remember is that interest-type curiosity turns uncertainty from scary to fun by doing two things:

Embracing the mystery (the presence of uncertainty)
Focusing on positive possibilities

For example, if you are feeling anxious about an upcoming exam, try to think about what you are excited to learn while studying, or try to think of the essay question as a puzzle or game so you can enjoy figuring out the answer to it rather than worry you haven't figured out the answer yet.

How might your research inform clinical efforts?

Prior to our study, the common assumption within psychological research has been that being open and tolerant of uncertainty is inherent to curiosity. This has led to the development of clinical interventions that involve boosting curiosity to treat anxiety in certain circumstances, since it is thought that an increase in curiosity leads to a decrease in discomfort with the unknown (a common symptom of anxiety).

Our results suggest that this assumption is likely true for interest, but not for deprivation. Interest may help alleviate anxiety, whereas deprivation may exacerbate anxiety by creating additional discomfort and apprehension in the face of uncertainty.

We hope that our findings will help clinicians harness the curative effects of curiosity more effectively by ensuring that, if they use curiosity to treat anxiety, they focus specifically on fostering interest rather than deprivation.