Estimated reading time: 10–12 minutes

What You Will Learn

• How curiosity is understood within the VIA Character Strengths framework.
• Why curiosity involves more than simply enjoying novelty.
• What research suggests about curiosity, learning, memory, and motivation.
• How curiosity may support more flexible responses to everyday stress and uncertainty.
• How curiosity can contribute to meaning, engagement, and relationships without guaranteeing these outcomes.
• Whether curiosity can be deliberately developed.
• Practical ways to bring curiosity into familiar routines, conversations, decisions, and challenges.

What Is Curiosity?

VIA describes curiosity as taking an interest in ongoing experience, exploring and discovering, and being open to new ideas and experiences. Someone for whom curiosity is highly characteristic may naturally ask questions, investigate unfamiliar topics, seek new perspectives, or enjoy discovering how things work. Yet curiosity does not require constant travel, excitement, or novelty. A person can approach the same profession, relationship, or subject for decades with curiosity if there continues to be something worth understanding more deeply. In VIA, it belongs to Wisdom, alongside creativity, judgment, love of learning, and perspective.

This distinction matters because curiosity and love of learning are related but not identical. Curiosity often pulls us toward a question or experience because something has captured our attention. Love of learning involves a more systematic desire to deepen knowledge or master a subject. Curiosity might lead you to wonder why a historical event happened; love of learning may lead you to study the period for months. Judgment then helps you evaluate what you discover, creativity may connect it in a new way, and perspective can help place the information within a larger picture. Like other VIA strengths, curiosity is often most useful when combined with additional strengths rather than treated as a complete solution by itself.

Curiosity Is More Than Novelty Seeking

Curiosity is sometimes reduced to the desire to try new things, but psychological research describes several different dimensions. Some curiosity is joyful, driven by the pleasure of exploration and discovery. Sometimes it is driven by an uncomfortable information gap, the feeling that you need to know how a mystery ends or why something happened. Other models include social curiosity, the desire to understand people, and stress tolerance, the willingness to engage with uncertainty when exploring something unfamiliar feels uncomfortable.

These distinctions explain why curiosity does not always feel pleasant. A difficult question can create tension before it produces insight. Exploring another person’s point of view may challenge beliefs you would rather protect. Learning about a complicated problem can initially make you feel less certain rather than more knowledgeable. Curiosity is valuable partly because it can motivate approach in situations where avoiding uncertainty would be easier.

What the Brain Research Actually Shows

In a 2014 experiment, people remembered trivia answers better when they had been more curious to learn them. They also remembered unrelated faces better when these appeared during anticipation of high-curiosity answers. Brain imaging linked this state with activity involving reward-related regions and the hippocampus, which supports memory. The findings concern a particular laboratory task and do not prove that curiosity generally causes resilience or well-being. A useful everyday inference is to identify a question you actually want answered before studying, while recognizing that this is an application of the finding rather than a tested guarantee for every learner.

Curiosity Can Be Cultivated

A meta-analysis of 41 randomized controlled trials involving 4,496 participants found that interventions increased measured curiosity on average. The approaches and measures varied, so the result does not establish one universal method or a lasting change in VIA ranking. Some interventions used mystery, games, or opportunities for exploration. The practical implication is that curiosity can respond to how an activity is arranged. You might begin with a puzzling example, offer a choice of questions, or leave space to investigate something unexpected.

Development does not require imitating someone who enjoys constant novelty. A quieter person might explore a familiar topic more deeply or ask one thoughtful follow-up question. Choose a question with enough relevance to hold your interest, and give yourself a realistic amount of time. The point is to make exploration possible, not to turn every moment into a lesson.

Curiosity and Resilience: A Resource, Not a Shield

The connection between curiosity and resilience deserves careful language. Curiosity cannot prevent adversity, eliminate anxiety, or guarantee that someone will recover quickly from a difficult experience. Resilience depends on many factors, including relationships, material resources, health, coping strategies, environmental conditions, treatment when necessary, and the severity of what happened. Character strengths are only part of that larger system.

Still, curiosity may contribute to adaptive responding by helping people remain interested in what is happening rather than closing down every uncertain possibility. A 21-day diary study of 167 adults found that stressor exposure was associated with greater negative mood, as expected, but that this association was weaker on days when participants reported higher-than-usual curiosity. Because this was observational research, it cannot prove that curiosity caused the reduced stress response. It does suggest that day-to-day curiosity may be relevant to how people experience ordinary stress.

Curiosity can also change the questions we ask during difficulty. “Why is this happening again?” can become “What pattern am I missing?” “I cannot handle uncertainty” can become “What information do I actually have, and what remains unknown?” These questions do not make the problem positive. They simply create more room between an event and the conclusion we immediately draw from it.

Curiosity and the Ability to Live With Uncertainty

Curiosity often requires a certain willingness to remain temporarily without an answer. This is especially relevant because intolerance of uncertainty is associated with anxiety and difficulties in emotion regulation. Curiosity is not the opposite of anxiety, and being curious does not mean enjoying every uncertain situation. A person can feel anxious and curious at the same time.

The useful shift is from demanding immediate certainty toward becoming willing to investigate. In a career transition, for example, curiosity might replace the impossible question “Which decision guarantees the right future?” with smaller questions: “What kind of work gives me energy? What skills would I need? Who could tell me what this role is actually like?” The uncertainty remains, but it becomes something that can be explored rather than only endured.

This is one reason curiosity can support psychological flexibility. It keeps multiple possibilities available long enough for learning to occur. That flexibility should not be confused with endless openness. Eventually, judgment and decision-making are still required.

Curiosity and Meaning

A 21-day diary study by Todd Kashdan and Michael Steger linked curiosity with growth-oriented behavior and daily experiences of meaning and life satisfaction. Because these were associations, they do not establish that becoming curious automatically creates a meaningful life. Relationships, commitments, culture, and purpose also shape meaning. Curiosity may help a person explore what matters or reconsider an old interpretation. You might ask why a conversation affected you, which part of your work feels worthwhile, or what you have begun to care about more deeply.

Curiosity and PERMA

Curiosity can intersect naturally with Seligman’s PERMA model of Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment, but it should not be described as a mechanism that automatically strengthens all five elements. PERMA is a framework for thinking about well-being, not a causal map showing that one character strength produces every component. Curiosity may contribute to Positive Emotion through interest, surprise, and enjoyment of discovery. It may support Engagement because questions can pull attention more deeply into an activity. In Relationships, genuine curiosity can encourage listening and reduce the assumption that we already understand another person. Curiosity may contribute to Meaning by encouraging exploration of values and purpose, while in Accomplishment it can support learning, experimentation, and adaptation when a strategy fails.

But these pathways depend on what happens next. Asking a question does not create intimacy unless the other person feels respected. Exploring a new strategy does not produce accomplishment unless it eventually works. Curiosity opens doors; other strengths and circumstances determine what happens after they open.

Curiosity in Relationships

Curiosity becomes especially interesting when directed toward people rather than information. Relationships can become rigid when we assume familiarity means complete understanding: “I already know why she does that,” “He always reacts this way,” “There is no point asking.” Sometimes those conclusions are accurate. Sometimes they freeze another person into an old interpretation.

Interest in another person becomes useful through how we listen and respond. A question asked only to confirm a suspicion is different from a question whose answer we are willing to hear. Leave room for the person to surprise you, correct your interpretation, or decline to discuss something private. Familiarity can be a starting point for understanding rather than a reason to stop asking.

A useful relational practice is therefore the follow-up question. Instead of moving immediately to your own story, advice, or interpretation, stay with what the other person has just said. “What was that like for you?” “What made that important?” “What happened next?” Curiosity becomes relationally constructive when it communicates interest rather than surveillance or judgment.

Moving From Autopilot to Micro-Exploration

Routine itself is not the enemy of curiosity. Routines save cognitive effort and make complex lives manageable. Problems arise when efficiency becomes so dominant that familiar experiences stop receiving attention. You can counter this without making dramatic lifestyle changes by introducing small acts of exploration into what already exists.

Choose one familiar activity and alter one element. Take a different route and observe what changes. Read one article from outside your usual field. Ask a colleague how they approach a task you normally perform automatically. During a familiar conversation, replace one assumption with a question. When you notice boredom, ask whether the situation is genuinely empty or whether your attention has stopped looking.

Another useful practice is a short curiosity journal. Instead of recording what happened during the day, record what made you wonder. Write down one question you encountered, one assumption that changed, or one subject you want to understand better. You do not have to answer every question. The purpose is to make inquiry visible again.

Underuse, Overuse, and Optimal Use of Curiosity

Underuse may appear when we stop checking assumptions even though a manageable question could improve understanding. A colleague seems distant, and we decide they are unfriendly without considering what else might be happening. Yet reduced interest during illness, grief, burnout, or overload does not establish weak character. Sometimes rest and a sense of safety must come before exploration. A lower curiosity ranking also does not mean that someone is incapable of interest or discovery.

Overuse may involve intrusive questions, endlessly opening new topics, or searching for more information after there is enough to act. A person can spend an evening following interesting links and finish with less time for the issue that mattered. Optimal use means choosing a relevant question, respecting boundaries, evaluating the answer, and deciding when to stop. Judgment helps assess sources, prudence recognizes risk, and social intelligence helps us ask with consent and sensitivity. Perseverance can turn a promising question into deeper understanding instead of another abandoned beginning. Before opening the next page, ask what you need to know and how that knowledge would change your next step.

A Small Experiment in Everyday Curiosity

Choose one recurring difficulty that is small enough to examine without overwhelming yourself. If a meeting repeatedly loses focus, begin with a concrete question about when attention starts to drift rather than deciding that everyone lacks motivation. Observe the next meeting, ask a willing colleague what they notice, and compare explanations before suggesting a change. You may discover an unclear agenda, a poorly timed discussion, or a question that never gets answered. None of these possibilities is established just because it sounds plausible. Curiosity becomes useful when it leads to information that can distinguish between them.

Give the exploration a boundary, such as one conversation or one week of observation. Write down what you expected, what you learned, and what remains uncertain. Then choose a small action or decide that no change is needed yet. This keeps questioning connected with everyday life instead of becoming another demand on your attention. If you feel overloaded, choose an easier question or postpone the exercise. A useful practice leaves you better informed and able to respond, rather than obliged to investigate everything.

References

• Drake, A., Doré, B. P., Falk, E. B., Zurn, P., Bassett, D. S., & Lydon-Staley, D. M. (2022). Daily stressor-related negative mood and its associations with flourishing and daily curiosity. Journal of Happiness Studies, 23, 423–438. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-021-00404-2
• Gruber, M. J., Gelman, B. D., & Ranganath, C. (2014). States of curiosity modulate hippocampus-dependent learning via the dopaminergic circuit. Neuron, 84(2), 486–496. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2014.08.060
• Kashdan, T. B., & Steger, M. F. (2007). Curiosity and pathways to well-being and meaning in life: Traits, states, and everyday behaviors. Motivation and Emotion, 31, 159–173. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-007-9068-7
• Kashdan, T. B., Stiksma, M. C., Disabato, D. J., McKnight, P. E., Bekier, J., Kaji, J., & Lazarus, R. (2018). The five-dimensional curiosity scale: Capturing the bandwidth of curiosity and identifying four unique subgroups of curious people. Journal of Research in Personality, 73, 130–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2017.11.011
• Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. Oxford University Press.
• Schutte, N. S., & Malouff, J. M. (2023). A meta-analytic investigation of the impact of curiosity-enhancing interventions. Current Psychology, 42, 20374–20384. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03107-w
• Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Free Press.
• VIA Institute on Character. (n.d.). Curiosity. https://www.viacharacter.org/character-strengths/curiosity