Exploring the Convergence of Curiosity across Behavioural Tasks and Personality Trait Questionnaires

Curiosity is considered a critical motivational force and virtue that encourages innovation and learningand drives us to explore the unknown. Psychologists tend to measure curiosity via behavioural tasks orvia self-report personality trait questionnaires, and each measurement method has particular strengthsand findings related to curiosity’s predictors, putative mechansims, and outcomes. Although behavioural and self-report trait measures of curiosity have rarely been assessed within the same study, recent years have seen the beginning of such an endeavour, and this integration could permit cross-pollination of ideas and hypotheses for future research. After providing a brief review of behavioral and self-report measures of curiosity, I summarise how current evidence supports only mild overlap between the two measurement methods, with positive relations depending on the particular task measure and particular facet of trait curiosity chosen. Divergence between task and trait measures could suggest different cognitive/emotional mechanisms supporting the need to know. Employing multiple personality trait measures with behavioural tasks can help to gain an understanding of the boundaries, inconsistencies, and similarities between different measurements of curiosity.