Tales of Life: Social Curiosity for Positive and Negative Life Events of Culturally Close and Distant Others

Personalized stories about others’ life experiences are omnipresent in media, yet we know little about what drives people to engage with such narratives. Across two studies (N = 596 UK adults), we investigated how social curiosity is driven by valence (positive versus negative life event) and cultural distance (experience from someone from a culturally close versus distant country). Consistently, participants reported greater curiosity for stories about negative life events, especially when the story’s protagonist was culturally close. Structural equation modelling revealed that the relationship between negative valence and higher curiosity was mediated through greater anticipated insight and – counterintuitive at first sight – greater anticipated distress of negative stories. At the same time, curiosity for negative stories was suppressed through lower expected enjoyment. These findings suggest that curiosity is driven by anticipated emotional impact of either valence, and have implications for fostering empathy and meaningful engagement in media and public discourse.