Enhancing Social Curiosity Drives Sharing in Young Children

Enhancing Social Curiosity Drives Sharing in Young Children | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Enhancing Social Curiosity Drives Sharing in Young Children Nayen Lee, Kelsey Lucca This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9444842/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 5 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Much of human thinking is devoted to understanding how others think, feel, and behave. Yet, the intensity and focus of social curiosity vary across individuals starting in childhood. What are the motivational factors that drive social curiosity, and does it lead children to act in ways that benefit others? Across two experiments (N=228), we tested whether providing minimal, but incomplete information about unfamiliar people would heighten social curiosity and promote sharing relative to a physical curiosity or no curiosity control conditions. Five-to eight-year-olds randomly assigned to social curiosity conditions were more socially curious than children assigned to control conditions, demonstrating that social curiosity is malleable and that creating social knowledge gaps and drawing children’s attention to those gaps are key means to sparking it. Boosting social curiosity also increased sharing among children low in trait-level social curiosity, indicating that situational social curiosity can compensate for lower baseline levels, and providing new insights into ways to support curiosity-driven social engagement in childhood. Biological sciences/Neuroscience Biological sciences/Psychology Social science/Psychology Curiosity Social Curiosity Interpersonal Curiosity Sharing Intervention Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files FinalRevisedSM.pdf Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 08 May, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 05 May, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 29 Apr, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 28 Apr, 2026 First submitted to journal 28 Apr, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-9444842","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":636902489,"identity":"276c96cd-62bd-4b39-8a14-267219e4526f","order_by":0,"name":"Nayen Lee","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Arizona State University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Nayen","middleName":"","lastName":"Lee","suffix":""},{"id":636902490,"identity":"416cd4ae-509a-4ce2-b780-8411ee0637ab","order_by":1,"name":"Kelsey Lucca","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAqUlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYBACCXYwZQPh8RClhRlMpZGu5TAJWiSbeQw//Kg5Ly8/I4Hxwds2IrRIM/MYS/Ycu2244UYCs+FcYrTIMfOYMTOw3WbcIJHAJs1LvJZ/5+znz0hg/02UFmmQFsa2A4kNNxLYmInSItnMVizZ25ecvOHMw2bJOeeI0CJxvHnjhx/f7Gzntycf/PCmjAgtSICxgTT1o2AUjIJRMApwAwBJsy6jPjnyCgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==","orcid":"","institution":"Arizona State University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Kelsey","middleName":"","lastName":"Lucca","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-04-17 06:24:50","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9444842/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9444842/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":109405226,"identity":"fad94e8e-c4d8-4bcd-81cf-97ad0f871213","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-17 13:03:01","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":2317942,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"FinalRevisedManuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9444842/v1_covered_5ad9f8ae-377b-4565-9313-432f1e547d39.pdf"},{"id":109282390,"identity":"34c31e44-870e-45d7-996b-59ca6bd16173","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-05-14 18:40:00","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":548535,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"FinalRevisedSM.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-9444842/v1/a7b2166684f8689ba595bd7d.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Enhancing Social Curiosity Drives Sharing in Young Children","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"scientific-reports","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"scirep","sideBox":"Learn more about [Scientific Reports](http://www.nature.com/srep/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Scientific Reports","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Scientific Reports","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Curiosity, Social Curiosity, Interpersonal Curiosity, Sharing, Intervention","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-9444842/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-9444842/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"Much of human thinking is devoted to understanding how others think, feel, and behave. 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