I have recently been reading the
book Curious: The Desire to Know and Why
Your Future Depends on It by Ian Leslie (2014), I see many applications of
the book in dissertation work. Leslie defines curiosity as a need to make sense
of the world and discusses several levels of curiosity. First, is diversive
curiosity; in adults, this is a restless desire for the new and the next. Our
modern technology seems designed to stimulate this level- every email, tweet,
new smart phone or computer calls to us a promise to satisfy our needs.
Unrestrained diversive curiosity drags us from one object to another without gaining
any real insight.
A deeper and more disciplined
type of curiosity is epistemic curiosity. This type is related to problem
solving, combining ideas, and creating new experiments to test those ideas.
This is the level of curiosity needed for dissertations, to have the desire to
dig deeper and make new connections.
Leslie makes the argument that
the internet has actually hurt our curiosity, making us more readily satisfied
with quick answers and feeding into the diversive level. Quick answers results in
less of a need to search and understand the connections between ideas and try
to solve problems.
A final type of curiosity is
empathic curiosity, a search for understanding the thoughts and feelings of
other people. This is not gossip or superficial details; rather it is putting
yourself in another's place and to understand the world through their eyes. As
an example, diversive curiosity may make you wonder what Emily does for a
living. Empathic curiosity makes you wonder why she has chosen to be a dental
hygienist. Empathic curiosity is the basis for much of psychology, to try to
get at the underlying reasons for behavior.
Next time I will look at the relationship of curiosity to
pleasure. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss
in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas!
leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu
Leslie, I. (2014). Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your
Future Depends on It. London: Quercus.
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