Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what Will? What's that?
Speaker 3: Mango?
Speaker 1: If you've ever made a decision then wondered what might
Speaker 1: have happened if you'd made a different decision, you've experienced
Speaker 1: something called counterfactual curiosity. Is that something that's familiar to you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that means nothing for me. I mean when I
Speaker 3: make up my mind, that is it. There is no
Speaker 3: second guessing, Mango. Yeah, Well, you are very unusual, and
Speaker 3: counterfactual curiosity is also unusual because, unlike other types of curiosity,
Speaker 3: pursuing that line of thinking never leads to a reward.
Speaker 3: Knowing what could have happened has zero real world benefit
Speaker 3: unless you own a time machine, and often it has
Speaker 3: negative impact because it makes you feel regret. So you
Speaker 3: think that if there's something with no reward and a
Speaker 3: high risk of negativity, you'd want to avoid it. But
Speaker 3: studies have shown that just isn't true.
Speaker 1: In one test, people were shown in an animation of
Speaker 1: a balloon and they had to choose a number of
Speaker 1: times to pump the balloon, and if it burst, they lost,
Speaker 1: if it stayed intact, they won. So Afterwards, participants were
Speaker 1: given the option of seeing the correct number of pumps
Speaker 1: that would have inflated the balloon without bursting it, and
Speaker 1: over and over and over they requested that information, even
Speaker 1: though they also reported that knowing the answer made them
Speaker 1: feel worse if their guests had popped the balloon.
Speaker 3: Wow, so that counterfactual curiosity was just too strong, unlike
Speaker 3: the blown I suppose exactly.
Speaker 1: And today we are kicking off a week long series
Speaker 1: all about curiosity, why we have it, how it changes
Speaker 1: over the course of our lives, whether animals experience it,
Speaker 1: and where that saying curiosity killed the cat really came from.
Speaker 1: We've got lots of questions and all most as many answers,
Speaker 1: So let's step in.
Speaker 3: Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 3: Will Pearson and as always I'm here with my good
Speaker 3: friend Mangesh hot Ticket and Mango. You won't believe this
Speaker 3: one thing our Palin producer, Dylan Fagan is doing over
Speaker 3: there in the booth today.
Speaker 1: What's he doing?
Speaker 2: He's doing one thing that'll blow your mind.
Speaker 1: Mango, I cannot see from where I'm saying. Will you
Speaker 1: just tell me?
Speaker 3: Well, do you really want to know, yes, of course,
Speaker 3: I want to know you sound that you actually sound
Speaker 3: maybe a little bit annoyed.
Speaker 1: I have annoyed.
Speaker 3: Well, then my experiment is a success, Mango, I've successfully trapped.
Speaker 2: You in an information gap.
Speaker 3: That's a concept of curiosity, developed by behavioral economist George Lowenstein,
Speaker 3: who incidentally is the great grandson of Sigmund Freud. Now,
Speaker 3: according to him, curiosity is a form of cognitive deprivation
Speaker 3: that occurs when you have some concrete information.
Speaker 2: But you don't feel like you have enough.
Speaker 3: So it's not a total absence of knowledge, but it
Speaker 3: is an absence of satisfaction because the other key thing
Speaker 3: is you're aware that this gap could potentially be filled.
Speaker 3: So in your case, just now, I gave you a small,
Speaker 3: but you know, super tantalizing piece of information, and I
Speaker 3: told you that Dylan was doing a specific activity in
Speaker 3: the booth. I made it clear that I knew what
Speaker 3: it was that primed you for a sudden rush of curiosity. Now,
Speaker 3: if I just said Dylan isn't here today, I don't
Speaker 3: know where he is, you might still wonder what he's
Speaker 3: up to, but you probably wouldn't feel that strong urge
Speaker 3: to find out even though in the end it's the
Speaker 3: same basic scenario. Dylan's doing something and you have no
Speaker 3: idea what it is.
Speaker 4: Mango.
Speaker 1: That is fascinating. But also I have this feeling that
Speaker 1: you're never going to tell me what he's doing.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you what at the end of the episode.
Speaker 3: We'll have Dylan self fill you in.
Speaker 1: That is an incredible treat. It's a deal. Okay. So,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, this is the beginning of our
Speaker 1: week long exploration of curiosity. And I'm really excited because
Speaker 1: you know, I think we both are curious people. Our
Speaker 1: lives are animated by curiosity, right, Like it's such a
Speaker 1: big part of our friendship too. I mean I know that,
Speaker 1: like just hearing the topics you were fascinated by, like history, religion,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and the classes you were interested in made
Speaker 1: me want to befriend you because like you picked out
Speaker 1: interesting things and you always had some like curious, fascinating
Speaker 1: thing to talk about.
Speaker 3: It's kind of wild to think about We're going on
Speaker 3: almost three decades of being curious about stuff together.
Speaker 2: When you think about that.
Speaker 3: First year dorm room in college and coming back from
Speaker 3: those classes, like you mentioned, having learned something interesting. Cramming
Speaker 3: into a dorm room with other friends and talking about
Speaker 3: it almost makes me feel like we were a little
Speaker 3: bit nerdy, But I can't decide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not at all, just the time.
Speaker 3: But you're right, it's the best feeling in the world
Speaker 3: to learn something new, to have somebody share something that
Speaker 3: they've learned, and just to exercise that curiosity.
Speaker 1: We were also curious about stupid things, right, like that
Speaker 1: bouncy ball that came into our dorm room and our
Speaker 1: senior year, and we would just like all of us,
Speaker 1: wanted to see how many times you could bounce it
Speaker 1: from the ground to the ceiling and just keep it going.
Speaker 1: And we wanted to know what the limits of this
Speaker 1: bouncy ball.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, and we had the strong arms to
Speaker 3: test it out. My favorite part about that whole story, though, was,
Speaker 3: if you remember this, we lived upstairs from this certain
Speaker 3: fraternity at Duke and they had come upstairs right at
Speaker 3: the beginning of the school year and they were like, guys,
Speaker 3: we just want to give you heads up. Sometimes we're
Speaker 3: really loud and I we like to party. I hope
Speaker 3: that doesn't bother you too much. And we're like, it's
Speaker 3: cool whatever, and then like night three of being there
Speaker 3: is when we did this bouncy ball thing and two
Speaker 3: of the guys walked up from that frat and they
Speaker 3: were like, guys, what is going on? And they walked
Speaker 3: into a room and we were.
Speaker 2: Like one, two, three, four or five except watching the
Speaker 2: ball bounce between the floor and the ceiling. Yeah, boo
Speaker 2: boo boom boo boo boo boo boo. It was such
Speaker 2: a thrill, But that's what we were up to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right, that seems like worthwhile curiosity to me anyway.
Speaker 1: So each episode for the series is going to take
Speaker 1: a look at different aspects of curiosity, and we're kicking
Speaker 1: things off with neuroscience and psychology, like what really goes
Speaker 1: on in our brains when we experience curiosity, How does
Speaker 1: that affect our minds and our behavior? And what does
Speaker 1: all of this have to do with impulse shopping. But
Speaker 1: before we get into the science, we asked our friend
Speaker 1: Mitra to take her microphone around the streets of Brooklyn
Speaker 1: to find out how some everyday people define curiosity.
Speaker 5: Curiosity to me means interest, whether it's being curious about
Speaker 5: a person, about a subject, about an object, whatever it is.
Speaker 5: It means interest, I would say maybe excitement for the unknown.
Speaker 6: I think it's a discipline because I think it needs
Speaker 6: to be cultivated, but like a discipline that ensures that
Speaker 6: I am not doing the same thing over and over again,
Speaker 6: and I'm staying open to new ideas, new places, new
Speaker 6: thought processes.
Speaker 1: Curiosity is the desire to learn, to keep evolving, changing,
Speaker 1: collecting knowledge and insights some sort give.
Speaker 5: In my head right now, curiosities associate with like growth,
Speaker 5: you know, just trying to expand and learn more.
Speaker 2: For me, it's an actual need.
Speaker 6: I don't think I can go a day without being
Speaker 6: curious about almost everything.
Speaker 5: I guess curiosity is just acknowledging all the things you
Speaker 5: don't know and letting yourself wonder about them instead of
Speaker 5: being bummed you don't know it.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: So I really like that quote that curiosity is desire
Speaker 1: to learn to keep evolving and changing, because I one
Speaker 1: thing I found with my grandparents and actually my great
Speaker 1: grandmother is that they were most alive when they were curious,
Speaker 1: you know, like they were reading the paper till the end.
Speaker 1: My grandfather was learning this language kinda just because he
Speaker 1: had a story he wanted to write. And he thought
Speaker 1: it would be best written in that language, you know,
Speaker 1: And so like, I think there's something incredible about curiosity
Speaker 1: that is really life affirming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so too.
Speaker 3: It's also fun to watch people whose curiosity may be
Speaker 3: exercised in a slightly different way than ours, Like for us,
Speaker 3: I think most of the time it's just knowing information.
Speaker 3: But I also love watching people who are maybe fascinated
Speaker 3: by gear or how electronics work, or the types of
Speaker 3: things that it's not really how my brain works.
Speaker 2: I can't figure it out.
Speaker 3: But like watching somebody who's super into and it's like
Speaker 3: this watch is broken, I'm going to open it up
Speaker 3: myself and try to figure out how to fix it,
Speaker 3: or that sort of curiosity. I just I love watching
Speaker 3: people exercise their version of curiosity.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean I had an uncle who, uh in India,
Speaker 1: microwaves weren't available in the seventies, I think, great indies,
Speaker 1: and he went to the buy and got two microwaves
Speaker 1: and one was to use and one was just to
Speaker 1: take apart.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's so cool. No, I love that. That's pretty great.
Speaker 1: So in terms of curiosity, when it comes to the
Speaker 1: scientific definition, it's not as easy as you might think.
Speaker 1: Some studies measure curiosity by tracking eye movement. In other words,
Speaker 1: they're saying that if you choose to look at something,
Speaker 1: that means you're curious about it. Many researchers define curiosity
Speaker 1: as the self reported desire for information that has no
Speaker 1: clear purpose or utility. Doctor Celeste Kidd is the director
Speaker 1: of the Kid Lab at UC Berkeley, where she studies
Speaker 1: curiosity and knowledge acquisition, and she says, there's actually one
Speaker 1: big flaw with this approach.
Speaker 7: It's very hard to know in advance of encountering a
Speaker 7: particular situation whether a particular piece of information is going
Speaker 7: to be useful or not. A more concrete way of
Speaker 7: saying that is, maybe, to example, you might for some
Speaker 7: reason become fixated on tracking down a particular move that
Speaker 7: you remember seeing Usher do in the early two thousands
Speaker 7: and go on a deep dive trying to locate this clip.
Speaker 7: You don't need that runny direct purpose. However, knowing that
Speaker 7: piece of information could lead you to be interested in
Speaker 7: other pieces of information that's serve a function later.
Speaker 3: Okay, no disrespect to Usher, but I don't see how
Speaker 3: tracking down an old video of him dancing would make
Speaker 3: an impact on your life.
Speaker 1: Well, clearly you haven't watched enough Usher, But what if
Speaker 1: that video reawakens your love of dance, so you start
Speaker 1: looking for adult dance classes in your area and eventually
Speaker 1: quit your job and build a new career as a
Speaker 1: backup dancer. What if the Usher video sends you down
Speaker 1: a rabbit hole of nineties R and B and use
Speaker 1: that knowledge to make a killer playlist for someone you're dating,
Speaker 1: and that helps you eventually get married. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: also got this whole.
Speaker 3: Thing that I think you just explored your dream there,
Speaker 3: and I mean it may seem a little far fetched,
Speaker 3: but I guess stranger things have definitely happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's I guess Kid's point. Right. We
Speaker 1: can't say with one hundred percent certainty that any given
Speaker 1: piece of information won't have meaningful value in the future
Speaker 1: because all of this is so subjective. Instead of trying
Speaker 1: to land on one perfect clinical definition, it actually might
Speaker 1: be simpler to focus on different flavors of curiosity. So
Speaker 1: over the years, there have been various attempts at categorizing curiosity,
Speaker 1: but one of the most prominent frameworks separates it into
Speaker 1: two types, state versus trait curiosity.
Speaker 3: Actually this came up just this morning because we were
Speaker 3: looking at a list of the states, and I would say,
Speaker 3: my biggest state curiosity is why is Arkansas pronounced that way?
Speaker 2: Do we want to spend the rest of the episode
Speaker 2: exploring that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's because it was derived from the
Speaker 1: French name for native tribes who lived in the region.
Speaker 1: The folks in Arkansas kept the French pronunciation and up
Speaker 1: the river in Kansas they decided to anglicize it. But
Speaker 1: that is not.
Speaker 2: I love you knew the answer to that. That's impressive.
Speaker 1: State curiosity is when your curiosity is activated by a
Speaker 1: particular topic or situation, Like if you realize that you
Speaker 1: have a deep interest in the origin of place names,
Speaker 1: that would be state curiosity. Trait curiosity is what it's
Speaker 1: called when you're just naturally curious about lots of things.
Speaker 3: So basically, some people are curious all the time, like
Speaker 3: it's part of their personality, and then other people are
Speaker 3: only curious when something comes along that.
Speaker 2: I don't know that really interests them exactly.
Speaker 3: So I guess you and I would rank pretty high
Speaker 3: on the trait curiosity scale.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, I mean, it's why we do the show.
Speaker 1: So as someone who experiences a lot of curiosity, one
Speaker 1: of the things I wanted to know was why does
Speaker 1: it feel so good to get an answer to a
Speaker 1: question you're curious about, even if it's something you know
Speaker 1: is kind of pointless. And according to doctor Kid, it's
Speaker 1: because satisfying your curiosity releases all these feel good brain chemicals,
Speaker 1: including dopamine, which is the newer transmitter that's associated with
Speaker 1: feelings of pleasure and motivation, reward, all those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I did some reading about that, and
Speaker 3: there have actually been studies that try to show exactly
Speaker 3: how this process works. So I think my favorite was
Speaker 3: one where they put people in an MRI machine and
Speaker 3: then they made them read trivia questions. It's kind of cool, right,
Speaker 3: like a terrible trivia I'm glad I wasn't one of them,
Speaker 3: but I'm also glad they did this. But perhaps unsurprisingly,
Speaker 3: people who reported higher level of curiosity about the trivia
Speaker 3: questions showed clear activation in the parts of the brain
Speaker 3: associated with reward anticipation, so.
Speaker 1: They were all ready for that big dopamine hitting.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's exactly right, but brains are complicated, and our
Speaker 3: brains on curiosity appear to be very complicated. For example,
Speaker 3: in another experiment, people were shown blurry images, which made
Speaker 3: them curious about what they were looking at until clear
Speaker 3: versions of the images were finally revealed. Now, during that test,
Speaker 3: researchers found the activation in the parts of the brain
Speaker 3: related to unpleasant events. In other words, from a neurochemical standpoint,
Speaker 3: curiosity can be a quest for that good feeling that
Speaker 3: comes from getting information you really want, or it can
Speaker 3: be more like an aversion, an attempt to avoid the
Speaker 3: bad feeling of not knowing something. So in two thousand
Speaker 3: and five, a psychologist named Jordan Littman suggested that there
Speaker 3: are actually distinct types of curiosity, which he called interest
Speaker 3: curiosity or eye curiosity, and deprivation curiosity or de curiosity.
Speaker 1: That's really fascinating. I can definitely think of times when
Speaker 1: not knowing something has energized me, right like even late
Speaker 1: at night you fall into a rival hole or whatever,
Speaker 1: and you're more excited to learn. But other times, not
Speaker 1: knowing the answer to a question can be really negative
Speaker 1: and often a frustrating experience.
Speaker 3: And that's true, but remember curiosity isn't always tied to
Speaker 3: specific questions. So as humans, we crave novelty, and if
Speaker 3: our brains don't have enough stimulation in general, we can
Speaker 3: also get really frustrated. Like I read about these experiments
Speaker 3: at McGill University back in the nineteen fifties, where researchers
Speaker 3: paid healthy college students twenty dollars a day to sit
Speaker 3: in a room. They were comfortable, they had plenty of food,
Speaker 3: but there was nothing to see, hear, or touch, and
Speaker 3: for the first four to eight hours people were fine,
Speaker 3: but then the need for stimulation, any kind of stimulation,
Speaker 3: became pretty unbearable, so subjects were offered recordings of incredibly
Speaker 3: boring material, like a lecture for kids on the dangers
Speaker 3: of drinking or an outdated stock market report. One student
Speaker 3: asked to listen to the drinking lecture twenty times and
Speaker 3: a already hour period.
Speaker 2: That's how desperate he was.
Speaker 1: Wow. So we really are hardwired for mental stimulation and
Speaker 1: we want to engage with the world beyond ourselves.
Speaker 3: It's exactly right, And it seems that curiosity benefits our
Speaker 3: brains in other ways beyond just boosting dopamine and helping
Speaker 3: us avoid the discomfort of being uncertain or bored. Some
Speaker 3: of those blurry image studies I mentioned earlier found the
Speaker 3: link between curiosity and enhanced memory, so people had an
Speaker 3: easier time recalling images that they saw when they were
Speaker 3: curious about what they were looking at. So after we
Speaker 3: take a quick break, we'll talk more about what triggers
Speaker 3: curiosity and how that can affect everyday situations like drinking
Speaker 3: oat milk and scrolling through cat photos online.
Speaker 8: So don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Part Time Genius. It is day one
Speaker 1: of our week long dive into the fin phenomena of curiosity,
Speaker 1: and I hope you've enjoyed what you've heard so far.
Speaker 1: If you have, we are curious for how you feel
Speaker 1: about the show. Please leave us a nice rating and
Speaker 1: review and share this episode with a friend. We appreciate
Speaker 1: it so much, so will. Before the break, we were
Speaker 1: talking about how curiosity can give us a hit of dopamine.
Speaker 1: It can also improve our memory and of course make
Speaker 1: us better at trivia games. So if curiosity is so
Speaker 1: good for us, why aren't we curious about everything all
Speaker 1: the time. Well, Celeste Kid, the academic we were talking
Speaker 1: to before, says that triggering curiosity requires a specific set
Speaker 1: of conditions that vary from person to person.
Speaker 7: One of the things that we know from my lab's
Speaker 7: research is that you are not just curious about anything.
Speaker 7: Any information gap is not equally attractive. You are, in
Speaker 7: particular drawn to resolve the information gaps that are just
Speaker 7: right with respect to what you currently know. So the
Speaker 7: things that are the most attractive were things that are
Speaker 7: a little different from what you currently understand, but not
Speaker 7: so different that it would be difficult to encode them.
Speaker 7: I don't know the entire Swedish language, and while I
Speaker 7: do think it would be cool if I learned some Swedish,
Speaker 7: I'm not super motivated till I drop everything and do
Speaker 7: that right now. Because I don't know any of it.
Speaker 7: That makes it less attractive than learning something about a
Speaker 7: topic that I have some background in.
Speaker 1: And apparently the inverse is true too, so if we
Speaker 1: think we already know everything about a topic, it's less
Speaker 1: likely to make us curious. In a study involving trivia questions,
Speaker 1: people who had no clue about the answers and people
Speaker 1: who were confident they knew the answers were least curious
Speaker 1: during the test. Curiosity was highest among participants who thought
Speaker 1: they might have some idea about the answers. But weren't
Speaker 1: entirely certain, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I know when we would do live trivia events
Speaker 3: and things like that related to mental flows. I always
Speaker 3: thought that was fun, like that sort of the science
Speaker 3: of coming up with just the perfect question. So people like,
Speaker 3: maybe I don't know, I want to know that, but
Speaker 3: I feel like maybe I could guess it, but I really.
Speaker 2: Want to know the answer to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3: So we know that certain things pique our curiosity more
Speaker 3: than others, and that getting our curiosity satisfied rewards us
Speaker 3: with a rush of dopamine. But actually wanted to know
Speaker 3: how does all of this affect our behavior? And to
Speaker 3: answer that question, we turn now to a group of
Speaker 3: people who are extremely interested in this topic, marketing experts,
Speaker 3: not scientists. Well, marketing often involves psychology and behavioral science,
Speaker 3: and people who study consumer behavior spend a lot of
Speaker 3: time thinking about curiosity because it's such a powerful motivator.
Speaker 3: You obviously know the term impulse by right, Yeah, of course,
Speaker 3: what's actually the last thing that you impulse bought?
Speaker 1: I keep buying gadgets and gear related to tennis because
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, maybe this could help me improve a little,
Speaker 1: but maybe this will dampen the strings. As I play
Speaker 1: and I see some demonstration, I'm like, oh, yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: I tried that out.
Speaker 3: I wish mine was healthy like that, and I could
Speaker 3: make up one. But I'm going to be honest. It's
Speaker 3: always just a candy bar, right, just always, always a
Speaker 3: candy bar.
Speaker 1: What's so funny is you're so much more fit than.
Speaker 3: It's just they're so good, and you sit there and
Speaker 3: you're like, I don't need it, but there it is,
Speaker 3: and I haven't had that one, or it's like yesterday,
Speaker 3: I was like, I bet it's been five years since
Speaker 3: I've had a butterfinger.
Speaker 2: So I had a butterfinger. You know, it was curious.
Speaker 2: It tastes still good, still good, same formula thing from
Speaker 2: what I can tell.
Speaker 3: But anyway, obviously, sometimes we make impulse bies to satisfy
Speaker 3: a different kind of need or want. So you're at
Speaker 3: the checkout, you see that candy bar and you realize
Speaker 3: you're hungry and that lunch isn't for another couple of hours.
Speaker 3: But marketing studies have shown that curiosity itself is a
Speaker 3: powerful driver of impulse purchasing that's really hard to resist.
Speaker 2: Like you're at the checkout, you just ate lunch.
Speaker 3: But you see your favorite candy bar, has you know
Speaker 3: some new seasonal pumpkin spice flavor?
Speaker 2: Is it any good? You want to know? And there's
Speaker 2: only one way to find out?
Speaker 1: And if I buy it, I got that little jewelt
Speaker 1: of satisfaction from finding out what it tastes like. Even if,
Speaker 1: like me, you don't like pumpkins.
Speaker 7: I'm with you.
Speaker 2: I'm with you.
Speaker 3: We're probably gonna get so much hate mail for that,
Speaker 3: but I feel the same way. And you know, because
Speaker 3: curiosity in the quest for novelty do go hand in hand,
Speaker 3: this can also plan to our enthusiasm for new brands
Speaker 3: and new products. So several years ago, there was a
Speaker 3: study that looked at what might motivate Americans to buy
Speaker 3: plant based milk and also what might make them willing
Speaker 3: to pay a premium for it, because plant milk is
Speaker 3: often pricier than dairy. So the study authors came up
Speaker 3: with a list of hypotheses like, you know, quote, people
Speaker 3: are concerned about animal welfare and people think plant based
Speaker 3: milk is better for the environment. Well, it turned out
Speaker 3: that people did think it was worth paying more for
Speaker 3: products that are environmentally friendly and good for animals, but overall,
Speaker 3: these things didn't make them interested in picking up a
Speaker 3: gallon of oat milk.
Speaker 2: But you want to know what did curiosity? You nailed it.
Speaker 3: People were motivated to buy plant based milk because they
Speaker 3: were curious about it, and they were so curious, in fact,
Speaker 3: that they'd said they'd be willing to pay higher prices
Speaker 3: for it.
Speaker 1: But oat milk isn't even that, I mean, I guess not.
Speaker 3: But imagine how powerful this dynamic could be when you're
Speaker 3: selling bigger ticket items or when you're trying to grab
Speaker 3: people's attention, which, as you know, is a valuable commodity.
Speaker 3: You remember, these curiosity gap hadlines that started popping up
Speaker 3: everywhere back in twenty twelve twenty thirteen around that time.
Speaker 2: It's like what you and I did at the.
Speaker 3: Top of the show, like this toddler grabbed a knife
Speaker 3: and what happened next will shock you. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: so stupid, but you end up clicking because you got
Speaker 3: to know what that tyler did with that knife.
Speaker 1: I mean, what did that toddler do?
Speaker 6: This?
Speaker 2: We're gon we're going to read after this episode.
Speaker 1: Obviously, half the time that doesn't really shock you, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's always like a letdown and it's total bit
Speaker 1: and switch.
Speaker 3: But it works every time because that combination of curiosity
Speaker 3: and strong emotion is almost irresistible. And we see this
Speaker 3: tactic all around us, especially online. So producer Mary called
Speaker 3: up one of the most online people we know, former
Speaker 3: BuzzFeed editorial director Jack Sheppard. Jack told us that he
Speaker 3: and his team tried to avoid curiosity g app headlines
Speaker 3: because there's such a big risk of disappointing your audience.
Speaker 3: You do it time and again and people stop trusting
Speaker 3: your headlines, and then you know, it erodes that trust
Speaker 3: and discourages sharing on social media. But he said they
Speaker 3: did find other ways of using that powerful curiosity and
Speaker 3: emotion combo to make things go viral.
Speaker 9: A type of post that I would do all the
Speaker 9: time would be like one of my most popular posts
Speaker 9: of BuzzFeed was the one hundred most important cat pictures.
Speaker 8: Of all time.
Speaker 9: I remember that, and you know, again, in terms of
Speaker 9: like promising and delivering, like I don't want to say
Speaker 9: that this was a serious journalism, but I spent days
Speaker 9: making sure that each and every one of those one
Speaker 9: hundred pictures was indeed important. The emotion that you're going
Speaker 9: to experience is the emotion you experience when you see
Speaker 9: something really cute and the curiosity is like, well, what's
Speaker 9: the best one? You know, that's the classic curiosity of
Speaker 9: a list like that, which one's made the cut? And
Speaker 9: then another one would be an identity play, which is
Speaker 9: something that we did a lot, things like twenty five Things.
Speaker 9: You'll only end understand if you grew up the youngest sibling.
Speaker 9: There's a curiosity play there too, exactly where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 9: is this going to speak to my identity? Are they
Speaker 9: going to say the thing that's like you never got
Speaker 9: to sit in the front seat or whatever that actually
Speaker 9: triggers that sort of real identity response, and then, of course,
Speaker 9: in BuzzFeed's case, that eventually translated into quizzes. So that's
Speaker 9: literally a question, you know, which avenger are you is?
Speaker 9: You know, it's like I need to know. I want
Speaker 9: to know which avenger I am.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems so obvious, right, but it sounds
Speaker 1: like people put a lot of thought into how a
Speaker 1: specific story or headline or type of content will elicit
Speaker 1: curiosity in the audience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know we do it too, Like a
Speaker 3: lot of our episode titles are questions as Jack was saying, though,
Speaker 3: we always try to deliver what we promise, so if
Speaker 3: you listen to the episode, you will in fact get
Speaker 3: the answer to the question. But by appealing to your curiosity,
Speaker 3: we're hoping to get your attention. So to take some
Speaker 3: time away from your busy day and hang out with
Speaker 3: us so you can learn a little something new and
Speaker 3: hopefully something fun and ridiculous. And speaking of delivering on
Speaker 3: what we promise every day, this week we have a
Speaker 3: curiosity related activity for our listeners, and anyone who participates
Speaker 3: will have a chance to win a part Time Genius
Speaker 3: Prize pack. Mega you heard that, a part Time Genius
Speaker 3: Prize pack. So today, inspired by our conversation with Jack,
Speaker 3: we've made a quiz that is absolutely designed to activate
Speaker 3: your curiosity and your sense of identity. It's called which
Speaker 3: part Time Genius co host are you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I bet people are wondering that for NonStop. Yeah, for years,
Speaker 3: So it makes so many questions. Well, now you can
Speaker 3: finally get the answer. So you take the quiz and
Speaker 3: share your results with us on Instagram or Blue Sky
Speaker 3: at Part Time Genius. We'll pick one person at random
Speaker 3: to win a prize. Deadline is Sunday, October twenty sixth,
Speaker 3: and all the details and links are in the show
Speaker 3: notes and on our social media accounts.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when we did that? It was like
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's flavors that have been retired or paint
Speaker 1: colors or something. And then I think Ben from Ben
Speaker 1: and Jerry's took it and got like seven under.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't didn't get them all. That was so satisfied.
Speaker 1: I'm really curious about I'm gonna be a will er Mango.
Speaker 2: After I take this question.
Speaker 3: You're gonna take the quiz. All right, I'll take it
Speaker 3: with you. We compare results, but all right, we have
Speaker 3: one last break. But when we come back, how technology
Speaker 3: praise on our sense of deprivation curiosity and what we
Speaker 3: can do about it, plus why it's so easy for
Speaker 3: some of us to fall head first down research rabbit
Speaker 3: holes don't go anywhere.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to part time genius.
Speaker 3: Okay, Mango, you remember earlier I mentioned d curiosity or
Speaker 3: deprivation curiosity, and it turns out a lot of apps
Speaker 3: in social media are designed to trigger that particular type
Speaker 3: of curiosity, that nagging sense that you have to know
Speaker 3: what's happening and that you'll be deprived if you don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like it's almost like a type of fomo, right.
Speaker 3: It kind of, but it can feel more in tends
Speaker 3: than that, Like all those pings and red notification alert
Speaker 3: signals that something urgent and unknown is out there, even
Speaker 3: though it's probably aunt susan posting or vacation photos or
Speaker 3: pundit sharing a link to an article that we don't
Speaker 3: even really want to read. Our brains know that there
Speaker 3: is a chance something really important is going on, and
Speaker 3: in the past, not paying attention to something urgent and
Speaker 3: unknown could actually be life threatening, right, Like you don't
Speaker 3: want to be the one person who doesn't see the
Speaker 3: sabertooth tiger running down the hill or something scary like that.
Speaker 3: So it's hard to override that instinct to grab your phone,
Speaker 3: start scrolling, keep scrolling, and keep scrolling.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like I know this all too well,
Speaker 1: and I know that my phone kind of prays on me.
Speaker 1: Are you saying there's no way to turn off this
Speaker 1: type of curiosity?
Speaker 3: I mean maybe not, but we can read direct it
Speaker 3: and neuroscientists have looked at this one. In particular, jud
Speaker 3: Brewer wrote a great article about this, And here's what
Speaker 3: he suggests. When you feel that urge to check your phone,
Speaker 3: get curious about the urge itself. Ask yourself, what does
Speaker 3: this feel like for me? Physically?
Speaker 2: Am I bored? Am I anxious?
Speaker 3: Why did this particular notification seem so appealing? What this
Speaker 3: does is pivot you away from the grip of d curiosity,
Speaker 3: that feeling that you're missing out on something, and toward
Speaker 3: the realm of eye curiosity or interest curiosity. So suddenly
Speaker 3: you're operating from a place of wanting to learn more
Speaker 3: on your own terms, instead of chasing after some sense
Speaker 3: of satisfaction that you may never really get. Because there's
Speaker 3: an infinite stream of content online, there will always be
Speaker 3: more that you haven't seen, and you'll never be able
Speaker 3: to consume at all.
Speaker 1: That's really good advice, although I know it's easier said
Speaker 1: than done. Grappling with phone addiction is obviously a relatively
Speaker 1: new phenomena. These bigger questions about the neuroscience and psychology
Speaker 1: of curiosity are things that scientists have actually been thinking
Speaker 1: about for centuries. Pavlov, you know the guy with the dogs.
Speaker 1: He thought curiosity was a sort of reflex. The great
Speaker 1: psychologist William James called curiosity the impulse towards better cognition,
Speaker 1: placing it in the realm of knowledge and intellect. However
Speaker 1: you view it, curiosity is a defining trait of human beings,
Speaker 1: and according to Celeste kid, the defining nature of our
Speaker 1: curiosity is how incredibly specific it can be.
Speaker 7: Human curiosity occupies a lot of our time trying to
Speaker 7: resolve it. People get very very deep, they get very
Speaker 7: very specific in curiosity is the driving force that allows
Speaker 7: us to do that. The result is we as scientists,
Speaker 7: we have reporters. We have people that specialize in Renaissance
Speaker 7: era costuming. They know everything about the fabric. What this
Speaker 7: means is that at a population level, we are much
Speaker 7: smarter than even our closest evolutionary relatives. As a population,
Speaker 7: we have an incredible wealth of knowledge that venovos and
Speaker 7: chimps do not have that allow us to build computers
Speaker 7: and build and flight planes. The cost of that is
Speaker 7: that we've lost the basic knowledge we would need to
Speaker 7: survive as individuals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't imagine there are many chimps that know
Speaker 3: anything about Renaissance era or costuming. But we think about
Speaker 3: the average chum can survive in the wild by itself
Speaker 3: and a lot of us humans. We rely pretty heavily
Speaker 3: on takeout.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, And because we like to think about
Speaker 1: highly specific ideas, humans have a tendency to fall down
Speaker 1: curiosity rabbit holes. And that's when you start out with
Speaker 1: a simple question like why do rabbits have long ears?
Speaker 1: And the next thing you know, it's two hours later
Speaker 1: you're reading an article about Chester Greenwood, the guy who
Speaker 1: invented ear muffs. Right, and doctor Kid said, this happens
Speaker 1: when the initial piece of information we want is difficult
Speaker 1: to get, and as we work towards finding the answers
Speaker 1: we want, we encounter additional information, maybe something we hadn't
Speaker 1: even thought about before, and that opens up new questions
Speaker 1: or ideas we want to explore. So these days, of course,
Speaker 1: it's easier than ever to do this because we have
Speaker 1: so much information at our fingertips. Wikipedia is probably one
Speaker 1: of the best known rabbit holes sources on the Internet today,
Speaker 1: and last year some researchers actually studied the site in
Speaker 1: order to understand different patterns of curiosity. They tracked almost
Speaker 1: half a million Wikipedia users around the world, and what
Speaker 1: they found is that most people who go down Wikipedia
Speaker 1: rabbit holes fit one of three types. Busybodies who zigzag
Speaker 1: through a wide range of vaguely related topics, hunters who
Speaker 1: are more focused and searching a smaller number of more
Speaker 1: closely connected pages, And dancers, who take a more abstract approach.
Speaker 1: They hop between unrelated topics in an attempt to find
Speaker 1: new ideas and connections.
Speaker 2: Which one of these do you feel like you identify
Speaker 2: with most?
Speaker 1: I think I'm different things on different nights. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: don't you. I mean, like, there are knights where you're
Speaker 1: looking for something specific, and then the knights when you're
Speaker 1: like hopping around.
Speaker 3: I guess so I do think the others may sound
Speaker 3: more interesting, like I love the idea of some of
Speaker 3: the others. I do think most of the time I
Speaker 3: find myself in the hunter category if I'm being honest,
Speaker 3: where there's just a thing that you're like searching for
Speaker 3: and you're like, Okay, I'll learn more about that. I'll
Speaker 3: learn more about that. I'll learn more about that. But
Speaker 3: the other types are really fun. It's one of those
Speaker 3: where it's like if you felt like you had more
Speaker 3: hours in the day, I.
Speaker 1: Think you're right. And I think also like because our
Speaker 1: jobs involve learning so much all the time. It's very
Speaker 1: specific information that we're seeking out totally. Yeah.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 1: One of the authors of the study is a University
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania network scientist named Danny Bassett, who's written extensively
Speaker 1: about curiosity. They say it's not just about acquiring bits
Speaker 1: of information, it's about forming connections between pieces of information,
Speaker 1: a practice they call knowledge network building, and they believe
Speaker 1: we can learn a lot more about curiosity by using
Speaker 1: the tools of network science like mapping and modeling to
Speaker 1: get a concrete picture of how the hunt for one
Speaker 1: piece of information leads to another. In fact, it has
Speaker 1: already been proven that our brains are capable of organizing
Speaker 1: concepts into a map, and that's because we have specialized
Speaker 1: neurons called grid cells that fire as we explore physical spaces,
Speaker 1: recording and integrating information about location, direction, and distance. And
Speaker 1: it turns out that navigating physical space and navigating information
Speaker 1: light up similar regions in the brain. Isn't that insane?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So, who knows, Maybe someday we'll be able to plot
Speaker 1: our next Wikipedia rabbit hole adventure in Google maps in
Speaker 1: an app of the mind.
Speaker 3: It does sound really cool, but I am thinking this
Speaker 3: app needs some privacy settings because no one needs to
Speaker 3: know how much time I spent reading about the history
Speaker 3: of pop rocks when I was supposed to be working
Speaker 3: on this episode.
Speaker 1: How much time did you spend doing that.
Speaker 3: M I'd say that's between me and my browser, Maga.
Speaker 3: But all right, mego before we call it a day,
Speaker 3: we need to close that information gap. I left you
Speaker 3: with the very beginning of this episode. What was Dylan
Speaker 3: up to when we started recording? So are you ready
Speaker 3: to find out?
Speaker 1: You know? I'm so ready?
Speaker 2: All right over to you, Dylan.
Speaker 4: Hey, guys, I was building a life size replica of
Speaker 4: behavioral economist George Lowenstein, made entirely from marshmallows. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I just thought it'd be a nice way to arm
Speaker 4: the man who developed the information gap theory. Also, we
Speaker 4: had a lot of marshmallows in the booth for some reason. Anyway,
Speaker 4: great episode. I learned so much. But let's wrap it
Speaker 4: up now. I want to make George into Smortars.
Speaker 1: I not see that coming.
Speaker 2: So is your mind blown?
Speaker 8: Sure?
Speaker 2: Well, because you were such a good sport about.
Speaker 3: Being left in suspense, Mango, I'm awarding you today's trophy.
Speaker 2: Congratulations.
Speaker 1: I'll accept it, but of course I have to share
Speaker 1: with Dylan as long as he shares his s'mores.
Speaker 3: It looks like there's plenty to go around, so we
Speaker 3: should be good. But that does it for today. Our
Speaker 3: week long celebration of curiosity continues tomorrow, when we'll be
Speaker 3: talking about the history of curiosity, from the Middle Ages
Speaker 3: when it was considered a dangerous threat to society to
Speaker 3: today when we're able to look up anything we want
Speaker 3: on our phones. Plus we'll dig into the origin of
Speaker 3: the creepy phrase curiosity killed the cat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't wait, and don't forget to take our
Speaker 1: wich PTG co host are You Quiz and share the
Speaker 1: results with us on Instagram or Blue Sky and go
Speaker 1: our Genius. Be sure to follow us because we're doing
Speaker 1: fun activities and giveaways all week. You do not want
Speaker 1: to miss out. Thank you to the wonderful Metro but
Speaker 1: Shahi for collecting field tape for us, And thanks to
Speaker 1: doctor Celeste Kidd and Jack Sheppard for sharing their insights
Speaker 1: today from Will Dylan, Mary Gabe and myself. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
Speaker 1: of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and me Mongage Chatikler and researched by our good
Speaker 1: pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced
Speaker 1: by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: The show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell
Speaker 1: and Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay,
Speaker 1: Trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shory. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.