PubMed İndeksli Yayınlar Koleksiyonu / PubMed Indexed Publications Collection
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11779/1928
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Article The Cost of Curiosity: Information-Reward Tradeoffs in Early Childhood(Elsevier Science Inc, 2026-08-01) Lucca, Kelsey; Sen, Hilal H.Curiosity is a powerful engine of learning that shapes how people explore, acquire knowledge, and adapt to their environments. Though the implications of curiosity are clear, we know little about what drives curiosity. One widely-held view is that satisfying curiosity is intrinsically rewarding. Yet there is limited direct evidence supporting this claim, particularly during early childhood-a period characterized by heightened curiosity. Here, we provide an empirical test of whether satisfying curiosity is intrinsically valuable to children by asking whether they will forego hard-earned rewards to obtain information. To examine the limits of costly curiosity, we ask whether children will give up hard-earned rewards to learn something new, even when the information to be gained is unknown and offers no immediate or long-term benefit. Critically, we test what factors (i.e., age, gender, cultural background, trait curiosity, reward availability) shape children's willingness to engage in costly curiosity. In a sample of 226 children aged 3-6 years in the United States and Turkey, nearly all children (87%) gave up rewards to obtain information. However, costly curiosity was limited, most children gave up only a few rewards (i.e., the smallest amount possible), and the extent of trading varied by gender and culture: boys traded more than girls and children in the United States traded more than in Turkey. These findings provide evidence that children's curiosity is not driven by sheer impulse, but instead, a decision-making process that weighs both costs and benefits, and is shaped by broader individual and cultural factors.Article Citation - WoS: 2Where Should I Search Next? Messages Embedded in Storybooks Influence Children's Strategic Exploration in Turkey and the United States(Amer Psychological Assoc, 2024-08-01) Vaisarova, Julie; Kiefer, Sarah L.; Sen, Hilal; Todd, Peter M.; Lucca, KelseyDespite the vital role of curiosity-driven exploration in learning, our understanding of how to enhance children's curiosity remains limited. Here, we tested whether hearing a strategic curiosity story with curiosity-promoting themes (e.g., strategically approaching uncertainty, adapting flexibly to new information) versus a control story with traditional pedagogical themes (e.g., following rules, learning from others) would influence children's strategic exploration across two cultures. Three- to 6-year-olds from the United States (N = 138) and Turkey (N = 88) were randomly assigned to hear one of these stories over Zoom, before playing a game in which they searched for sea creatures across five fish tanks. All tanks had the same number of hiding spots but varied in the number of creatures they contained. Time was limited and children could not return to prior tanks, pushing them to allocate search effort strategically. Results indicated that across both countries, children in the strategic curiosity condition explored the virtual "aquarium" more broadly; they moved through tanks more rapidly than children in the control condition and were more likely to explore all five tanks before time ran out. Children in the strategic curiosity condition also showed relatively more strategic search, adapting their search based on the likelihood of finding creatures in each tank. While further research is needed to pinpoint which elements of our stories produced differences in search behavior and whether they did so by enhancing or inhibiting children's strategic exploration, storybooks appear to be a promising method for shaping children's exploration across multiple countries.