Questions about questions: New views on an old prejudice

The belief that good analysts do not ask, and do not answer, questions is a still-living strange recommendation, transmitted throughout psychoanalytic generations. The authors have extensively reviewed electronic databases and technical texts. They found that interrogative acts are largely omitted from technical considerations, generating a prejudice that does not consider questions as proper psychoanalytic tools, and they discuss possible foundations for this belief. The authors believe that the few authors that have touched on this issue have done so in a non-systematic and frequently incomplete form. Linguistic philosophy presents questions as speech acts : actions that are able to alter the equilibrium of dialogical discourses. This view permits psychoanalysts to understand the potentiality of questions to introduce psychic change because they can, simultaneously, interfere in the self, in the other and in the intersubjective relationship. An internal state of curiosity is described as a component of the mind of the analyst. Based on the argument of the ubiquity of the state of curiosity of the analyst, the authors carried out a set of technical propositions, regarding, on the one hand, when questions are not to be introduced (for instance, in the presence of free associations) and, on the other hand, when they would be useful as expanding factors of the preconscious-conscious system. Considering psychoanalyses as experiences of curiosity, they emphasize that both the internal state of curiosity of the analyst, and the eventual verbal questions put to the patient are potentially positive factors for psychic change. The authors present several clinical vignettes.     

人类对知识的好奇:认识性好奇心

认识性好奇心是个体对新知识的好奇,可从状态和特质角度理解,其中特质认识性好奇心又区分为兴趣型和剥夺型两种类型。近年来众多证据表明,认识性好奇心受知道感、性别、对信息的偏好模式等因素影响,并在学习、记忆及创造性方面起到积极作用。未来研究有必要着眼于毕生发展的角度进行纵向考察,完善其测量方式,并深入考察认识性好奇心对学习的影响机制,从而为教育实践提供一定启示。     

States of curiosity and interest enhance memory differently in adolescents and in children

Curiosity – broadly defined as the desire to acquire new information – enhances learning and memory in adults. In addition, interest in the information (i.e., when the information is processed) can also facilitate later memory. To date, it is not known how states of pre‐information curiosity and post‐information interest enhance memory in childhood and adolescence. We used a trivia paradigm in which children and adolescents (N = 60, 10–14 years) encoded trivia questions and answers associated with high or low curiosity. States of high pre‐answer curiosity enhanced later memory for trivia answers in both children and adolescents. However, higher positive post‐answer interest enhanced memory for trivia answers beyond the effects of curiosity more strongly in adolescents than in children. These results suggest that curiosity and interest have positive effects on learning and memory in childhood and adolescence, but might need to be harnessed in differential ways across child development to optimize learning.     

幼儿好奇心结构的探索性因素分析

幼儿好奇心结构的研究是幼儿好奇心发展研究的基础。根据已有的研究文献和对教师的开放式问卷调查,编制了幼儿好奇心发展教师问卷,对3-5岁幼儿的教师进行问卷调查,在此基础上进行探索性因素分析,结果表明,幼儿好奇心主要由敏感、观察、兴趣、探索、提问、解决问题、幻想、专注等8个因素构成。     

Curiosity as an Agent of Conscience

Public outcry against social outrages in our nation in the past few years have called for solutions that suggest that we as a nation believe that by strengthening the observational and punishing components of the superego of the American Psyche we can successfully overthrow our moral failings. By using data in regard to Adolph Eichman and other Nazis as clinical examples, it is suggested that the problem of our moral failings resides not in a deficient superego (a refluent moral agent) but in the insufficient development of conscience (a reflective consciousness). The roles that curiosity and impeded curiosity take in the development of morality are shown to be central to an understanding of how conscience differs from superego.     

个体当前状况对人际好奇的调节作用

人际好奇是指渴望获得新异、未知的关于他人的信息,在人们的社交活动中有着重要的意义。通过一个两人共同完成的赌博任务考察了个体当前状况及性别等因素对人际好奇的调节作用。结果发现：被试当前状况最佳即赢钱最多时,更倾向于去观看对方的结果;在不需付代价就可观看对方结果时,女性被试的人际好奇显著强于男性被试,而在需要付出代价时男女性被试没有显著差异。结论：当个体处于优势地位时,相对于处于劣势的人其人际好奇更强烈;女性比男性的人际好奇更强烈,但在满足人际好奇的过程中却会因需要付出一定代价而减少探究行为。     

THE ANALYST'S APPROACH AND THE PATIENT'S PSYCHIC GROWTH

Psychoanalysis, which shares many functions with other therapies, is built upon its unique concern for the unconscious forces active behind a patient's symptoms and difficulties. What defines psychoanalysis is the analyst's approach as a disciplined engagement in the service of exploring those forces and their roots, an approach that is the product of curiosity working in the service of the other. As a result of the analyst's actualizing this approach, the patient comes to benefit not only from whatever specific declarative interpretations and insights have been explicitly opened, but also, importantly, from observing and taking in the unspoken underlying psychoanalytic mental processes. In this light, the patient's significant capacities for empathy, a subject often neglected, are also discussed. ¹      

Influencing prior knowledge through a short reading impacts curiosity and learning

Curiosity predicts memory performance and it is influenced by prior knowledge. Reading a well-organized text can increase curiosity in a classroom setting, however it is not clear if reading a short text written in an encyclopedic style can increase curiosity and learning without explicit educational goals. We presented participants with a short text and examined if questions related to this reading could elicit higher curiosity ratings and better recall in a thematized version of the trivia task. In the first experiment, participants subjectively judged their prior knowledge of trivia questions. The curiosity of the participants was not influenced by the reading, but the memory effect of curiosity was amplified for the questions related to it. In the second experiment, we objectively verified whether the participants knew the answers. The curiosity ratings were higher for the questions related to the reading, but only the curiosity ratings influenced recall performance. These results show that prior knowledge induced by reading can have an effect on curiosity and learning, but it depends on how this knowledge is assessed by the learner.     

Facts and findings: A reply to Powell and Nettelbeck (2014)

In their recent article Powell and Nettelbeck (2014) question the predictive validity of intellectual curiosity for academic performance. We discuss here three issues we found with their report.     

Why so curious? Validation and cross‐cultural investigation of the Hindi Epistemic Curiosity Scale

Epistemic curiosity (EC) is the motive and need to seek knowledge. The present work entails validation of the English EC Scale translated into the Hindi language. Study 1 comprised confirmatory factor analysis of the Hindi scale using a sample of 223 bilingual Indians (143 females). The 10‐item two‐factor structure with Interest and Deprivation subscales was validated for the Hindi EC Scale. Convergent and discriminant validity was established, and model fits were assessed separately for males and females, along with measurement invariance testing. In Study 2, linguistic invariance testing and cross‐cultural comparisons were undertaken for a sample of 151 Indians (93 females) and 219 Americans (179 females) for the EC scales, to assess similarities in the underlying factor structure. Indians did not differ from Americans in their responses to the English EC Scale, but slight differences were observed for the Hindi EC Scale, suggesting an interplay of language and culture. Further, independent t tests compared the two samples on measures of curiosity, gossip, personality, and affect. Americans had a higher tendency toward interpersonal curiosity and agreeableness whereas Indians scored higher on intellect. Cross‐cultural and linguistic differences as well as future work are presented. In sum, the Hindi EC Scale is a valid and reliable instrument that can facilitate further translations into other Indian languages.     

从好奇发生到满足：好奇反馈循环的神经生理机制

好奇是驱动信息寻求行为最主要的内部动机。从感知信息缺口使好奇发生,到对控制进行价值评估,信息寻求行为发生,再到目标信息获得使好奇满足,每一环节都受到当前信息输入和上一环节反馈输出的影响,它们构成了一个反馈循环。该循环还嵌入在个体的终生发展过程中,随着经验积累和脑的发育不断变化。好奇反馈循环模型融入了控制的期望价值模型和贝叶斯强化学习框架,整合了来自监控系统、奖赏系统、控制系统等多个脑功能系统的研究证据,为理解好奇的神经生理机制提供了新思路。     

A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Curiosity and Creativity

Curiosity, the desire to know, may be associated with creativity, which involves generating ideas that are novel and valuable. This meta-analytic investigation consolidated the results of studies of the association between curiosity and creativity. Across 10 studies, which included 2,692 individuals, there was a significant association between more curiosity and greater creativity (weighted effect size r = .41, 95% CI [.27, .54], p = .0001). For studies examining the association of the exploration dimension of curiosity with creativity, the weighted effect size was r = .48, 95% CI [.09, .74], while for studies examining the deprivation sensitivity dimension of curiosity with creativity the weighted effect size was r = .20, 95% CI [.10, .29]. The association of self-report measures of curiosity with self-reports of creativity was r = .52, 95% CI [.40, .62], while the association of self-report measures of curiosity with rated creativity was r = .16, 95% CI [.10, .22]. These meta-analytic results are congruent with some theoretical assumptions regarding curiosity and creativity and can be a foundation for efforts to facilitate creativity.     

Daniel levinson and his theory of adult development: A reminiscence and some clarifications

I offer some reminiscences occasioned by the death of Daniel Levinson, a modern pioneer in the study of the human life cycle. I clarify three controversial aspects of Levinson's theory—its universality, the role of critical life events, and the place of relationships—as well as briefly foreshadow findings from his forthcoming book on women. I show that relationships to people, enterprises, and social institutions are the stuff out of which the individual life structure—Levinson's central concept—is formed. Levinson's dream was of a society in which the developmental needs of adults were better understood and met so that they could more generatively fill their roles in the institutions upon which the young depend. He thought this essential to the evolution of a society that would be both more competent and more humane. In this dream, which was a product of his own difficult mid-life transition and a measure of the success he achieved in integrating its polarities, Levinson united a warm, scientific interest in others with an affectionate curiosity about nature.     

Through rose-tinted glasses: How inducing and resolving curiosity makes consumers less skeptical and improves their product evaluations

Research indicates that in general, curiosity leads to more intense processing of an advertisement, which might result in a more skeptical response toward a persuasive message. However, we propose the opposite and argue that a process of evoking curiosity toward a stimulus in the first step (with the creation of an information gap) and resolving it in the second step creates a positive affective experience. Upon receiving curiosity-resolving information after becoming curious, consumers are less skeptical toward the advertised product, which leads to a more favorable attitude and a higher purchase intention. Based on four studies, we demonstrate curiosity's skepticism-reducing effect, its downstream consequences, and the underlying mechanism of positive affect. We show that this curiosity-stimulating way of information disclosure caused the effect instead of the information itself, which remained constant. The effects occur for integral curiosity, directed at the focal product, and for incidental curiosity, elicited by an unrelated stimulus. These results contribute to understanding consumer responses to curiosity-evoking advertisements, which are widespread, and provide implications for consumer psychologists, practitioners, and policy makers.     

母亲教养方式及其相关因素同幼儿好奇心关系的研究

研究以217名幼儿园儿童及其母亲为研究对象,以《母亲教养方式问卷》和自编《3—6岁儿童好奇心教师评定问卷》为工具,探讨了母亲教养方式及其相关因素与幼儿好奇心之间的关系。结果表明,不一致的母亲教养方式对幼儿好奇心有不利影响,放任的母亲教养方式下幼儿探索持久性较差;母亲受教育程度和生育年龄对幼儿好奇心的间接效应存在,但不显著。     

Curiosity about a positive or negative event prolongs the duration of emotional experience

Some researchers claim that uncertainty prolongs the duration of emotional experiences because uncertainty toward an emotion-eliciting event prolongs attention to that event. However, some results contradict this claim. We assumed that curiosity rather than uncertainty prolongs the duration of emotional experience via attention, and that attention and emotional experience are prolonged only when uncertainty elicits curiosity. This assumption is based on the information gap theory, which proposes that curiosity increases with uncertainty, but that curiosity decreases at a certain level of uncertainty. We conducted a survey study to investigate the relationships among curiosity, uncertainty, attention and duration of positive and negative emotional experiences. The results showed that curiosity, but not uncertainty, prolonged the duration of emotional experiences and the process was completely mediated by attention both for positive and negative emotions. Moreover, uncertainty prolonged the duration of emotional experiences only when uncertainty elicited curiosity, which in turn prolonged attention to the emotion-eliciting event.     

Measuring Epistemic Curiosity in Young Children

Epistemic curiosity (EC) is the desire to obtain new knowledge capable of either producing positive experiences of intellectual interest (I‐type) or of reducing undesirable conditions of informational deprivation (D‐type). Although researchers acknowledge that there are individual differences in young children's epistemic curiosity, there are no existing measures to assess the I‐ and D‐type constructs of EC in early childhood. The aim of this study was to develop and validate parent‐report scales that reliably assessed early expressions of I‐ and D‐ type EC in young children. To develop the I/D‐Young Children (I/D‐YC) scales, 16 potential items were administered to 316 parents of children aged 3 to 8. These items were adaptations of an existing adult self‐report measure of EC as well as newly developed items. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that a 10‐item 2‐factor (5 I‐type, 5 D‐type) model had the best fit. Construct validity analyses and psychometric data indicated that our newly developed I/D‐YC scales are valid and reliable measures of individual differences in early expressions of I‐ and D‐type EC. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nuanced aesthetic emotions: emotion differentiation is related to knowledge of the arts and curiosity

The ability to distinguish between emotions is considered indicative of well-being, but does emotion differentiation (ED) in an aesthetic context also reflect deeper and more knowledgeable aesthetic experiences? Here we examine whether positive and negative ED in response to artistic stimuli reflects higher fluency in an aesthetic domain. Particularly, we test whether knowledge of the arts and curiosity are associated with more fine-grained positive and negative aesthetic experiences. A sample of 214 people rated their positive and negative feelings in response to various artworks including positive and negative themes. Positive ED was associated with the embracing sub-trait of curiosity that reflects engagement and enjoyment of novelty and complexity, but was unrelated to artistic knowledge and perceived comprehension. Negative ED was associated with higher curiosity and particularly more knowledge of the arts. This relationship was mediated by appraised comprehension suggesting that deeper engagement with art, by those with more art knowledge, is associated with more fine-grained emotional experiences. This finding extends ED beyond well-being research and suggests that more nuanced emotional experiences are more likely for those with expertise in the arts and motivation for exploration.     

Attachment in donor‐conceived adults: Curiosity,search, and contact

Donor‐conceived (DC) people represent a unique population with atypical family structures. This study examined whether individual differences in attachment predict adults' self‐reported curiosity about their donor conception identity, as well as attempts to find the donor and establish contact. Data were collected from 488 DC people from the Donor Sibling Registry (DSR). People who were high in attachment‐related anxiety were more curious than others about their donor conception. Despite this curiosity, however, highly anxious people were more disengaged from donor conception and were not more likely than others to search for or have made contact with their donor. These findings suggest that insecure attachment—particularly attachment anxiety—may contribute to people's willingness to incorporate donor conception into their identities.     

5岁儿童探究行为与教师态度关系的实验研究

探索性行为是了解幼儿好奇心的重要指标。本研究从教师的支持与幼儿探索性行为的关系入手,以幼儿园的科学游戏为背景,以教师的支持为自变量,幼儿的探索性行为为因变量,以幼儿园5岁幼儿为实验对象。实验结果证明,教师的积极支持,情感支持、材料支持以及策略支持直接影响幼儿探索性行为的展开与活动效率。