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"Interest (Psychology)"
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Process Account of Curiosity and Interest: A Reward-Learning Perspective
Previous studies suggested roles for curiosity and interest in knowledge acquisition and exploration, but there has been a long-standing debate about how to define these concepts and whether they are related or different. In this paper, we address the definition issue by arguing that there is inherent difficulty in defining curiosity and interest, because both curiosity and interest are naïve concepts, which are not supposed to have a priori scientific definitions. We present a reward-learning framework of autonomous knowledge acquisition and use this framework to illustrate the importance of process account as an alternative to advance our understanding of curiosity and interest without being troubled by their definitions. The framework centers on the role of rewarding experience associated with knowledge acquisition and learning and posits that the acquisition of new knowledge strengthens the value of further information. Critically, we argue that curiosity and interest are the concepts that they subjectively construe through this knowledge-acquisition process. Finally, we discuss the implications of the reward-learning framework for education and empirical research in educational psychology.
Journal Article
Mindlessness : the corruption of mindfulness in a culture of narcissism
\" A contemplative practice with Buddhist roots, mindfulness is \"the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present-moment, non-judgmentally.\" Practicing mindfulness can be an effective adjunct in treating psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, and addiction. But have we gone too far with mindfulness? Recent books on the topic reveal a troubling corruption of mindfulness practice for commercial gain, with self-help celebrities hawking mindfulness as the next \"miracle drug.\" Furthermore, common misunderstanding of what mindfulness really is seems to be fueled by a widespread cultural trend toward narcissism, egocentricity, and self-absorption. Thomas Joiner's Mindlessness chronicles the promising rise of mindfulness and its perhaps inevitable degradation. Giving mindfulness its full due, both as a useful philosophical vantage point and as a means to address various life challenges, Joiner mercilessly charts how narcissism has intertwined with and co-opted the practice to create a Frankenstein's monster of cultural solipsism and self-importance. He examines the dispiriting consequences for many sectors of society (e.g., mental health, education, politics) and ponders ways to mitigate, if not undo, them. Mining a rich body of research, Joiner also makes use of material from popular culture, literature, social media, and personal experience in order to expose the misuse of mindfulness and to consider how we as a society can back away from the brink, salvaging a potentially valuable technique for improving mental and physical wellbeing. \"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Arts of Attention
Clustering around five major themes, and written by academics, researches and artists from Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, Taiwan and the United States, these essays explore how literary texts encode the faculty of attention, and how theories of reading recognize, or underestimate the arts and techniques of attention.
eBook
The hidden agenda of the political mind : how self-interest shapes our opinions and why we won't admit it
\"When it comes to politics, we often perceive our own beliefs as fair and socially beneficial, while seeing opposing views as merely self-serving. But in fact most political views are governed by self-interest, even if we usually don't realize it. Challenging our fiercely held notions about what motivates us politically, this book explores how self-interest divides the public on a host of hot-button issues, from abortion and the legalization of marijuana to same-sex marriage, immigration, affirmative action, and income redistribution.Expanding the notion of interests beyond simple economics, Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban look at how people's interests clash when it comes to their sex lives, social status, family, and friends. Drawing on a wealth of data, they demonstrate how different groups form distinctive bundles of political positions that often stray far from what we typically think of as liberal or conservative. They show how we engage in unconscious rationalization to justify our political positions, portraying our own views as wise, benevolent, and principled while casting our opponents' views as thoughtless and greedy.While many books on politics seek to provide partisans with new ways to feel good about their own side, The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind illuminates the hidden drivers of our politics, even if it's a picture neither side will find flattering\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Epistemic Curiosity and Situational Interest
To what extent are epistemic curiosity and situational interest different indicators for the same underlying psychological mechanism? To answer this question, we conducted two studies. In Study 1, we administered measures of epistemic curiosity and situational interest to 158 students from an all-boys secondary school. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis to find out whether a one-factor or a two-factor solution provides the best fit to the data. The findings supported a one-factor solution. A two-factor solution was only satisfactorily supported if one accepted that the two latent constructs were correlated .99. Study 2 was an experiment in which we experimentally manipulated the amount of prior knowledge 148 students had about a particular thermodynamic phenomenon. Epistemic curiosity and situational interest were each measured four times: before a text was studied, before and after a problem was presented, and after a second text was read. The treatment group studied a text explaining the problem after the problem was presented, whereas the control group read it before the problem was presented. The control group, in other words, gained prior knowledge about the problem. In the treatment group, both epistemic curiosity and situational interest significantly increased while being confronted with the problem. This was not the case in the control group. In addition, only in the treatment group scores on both measures significantly decreased after the text explaining the problem was studied. These findings support a knowledge gap account of both situational interest and epistemic curiosity, suggesting an identical underlying psychological mechanism.
Journal Article
The glamour of strangeness : artists and the last age of the exotic
\"Exploration of a \"rare, emotionally intense way of life\" in which artists like Raden Saleh and Walter Spies abandon the cultures that created them and adopt an exotic alternative\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Murky Distinction Between Curiosity and Interest: State of the Art and Future Prospects
Curiosity and interest are at the core of human inquiry. However, controversies remain about how best to conceptualize these constructs. I propose to derive definitions by attending to the common core of typical usages of the two terms. Using this approach, curiosity can be defined as a psychological state that includes three components: recognition of an information gap, anticipation that it may be possible to close it, and an intrinsically motivated desire to do so. Interest can be more broadly defined as intrinsically motivated engagement with any specific object, content, or activity. The two definitions imply that curiosity is a special case of interest. Furthermore, I propose to use the state-trait distinction to distinguish between momentary and enduring forms of both curiosity and interest, which makes it possible to treat state versus trait curiosity and interest in conceptually parallel ways. To make further progress in understanding the two constructs, research is needed that investigates their affective dynamics and their generalizability across age-related and socio-cultural contexts.
Journal Article
Alive at work : the neuroscience of helping your people love what they do
We've all seen the oft-cited Gallup poll that reports that an alarming majority of the workforce is disengaged and unmotivated. In Alive at Work, social psychologist Dan Cable argues that the reason for all the unhappiness is biological: organizations, in an effort to routinize work and establish clear-cut performance metrics, are suppressing what neuroscientists call our Seeking Systems, the part of our brain that craves exploration and learning. The good news is that organizations can activate our Seeking Systems, and, as Cable explains, it doesn't take extensive overhauls to their cultures to do so. With small changes, managers and supervisors can make meaningful impacts on our lives and restore our zest for work. For instance, the book reveals: how new hires exhibited their best traits and were less likely to quit in the future after sharing stories about themselves during on-boarding seminars, how Italian factory workers reduced their anxiety about a new process by playing with Legos, how employees at Make-A-Wish reduced burnout by crafting their own job titles. Filled with real-life examples from the author's own research and consulting, Alive at Work equips managers--and anyone looking to find more joy in their nine-to-five existence--with the guidance to maximize the curiosity and passion that lives within themselves and others.-- Provided by publisher
Book
What really elicits learners’ situational interest in learning activities: a scoping review of six most commonly researched types of situational interest sources in educational settings
The importance of interest in learning has long been recognized. Considering the beneficial effects of situational interest (e.g., its potential to develop into individual interest) and its primary dependence on environmental features, numerous empirical studies have explored various situational interest sources (e.g., novelty, utility-value) within learning activities. This review aims to systematically summarize the situational interest sources identified by existing empirical studies based on the four-phase model of interest development (Hidi & Renninger
Educational Psychologist
,
41
(2), 111–127,
2006
) and to synthesize the influence of these sources on learners’ situational interest. Underpinned by the five-stage framework by Arksey and O’Malley (
International Journal of Social Research Methodology
,
8
(1), 19–32,
2005
) and PRISMA extension for scoping reviews ([PRISMA-ScR], Tricco et al.,
Annals of Internal Medicine
,
169
(7), 467–473,
2018
), the current review examined 35 empirical studies on situational interest sources between 2006 and 2022. Six types of situational interest sources (utility-value/relevance/meaningfulness, novelty, cognitive activation/complexity, social interaction, hands-on activity, choice) were extracted from the empirical studies reviewed. The effects of these six types of situational interest sources in different conditions and for different types of learners were demonstrated in the review. Latent sources underlying the proposed types of situational interest sources were also examined. The psychological, cognitive or behavioural rationales underlying the effect of each type of situational interest source and the implications for future research and practice were discussed at the end of the review.
Journal Article