WHY CURIOSITY
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WHY CURIOSITY 〰️
WHY CURIOSITY?
CURIOUS PEOPLE DO IT BETTER
At Curious Agenda, we are well versed in the personal and professional benefits of Curiosity. From our experience inspiring curiosity in schools and startups, and engaging personally around the world - we know that a curious life is the key to innovation, empathy, wellbeing and success.
HOW IT WORKS
In our lives, curiosity is the drive to explore, learn and discover. Curiosity can be intellectual, empathic or self-reflective, and there are important benefits from each of these.
Top of the World Economic Forum’s list of character qualities needed for the 21st century, curiosity is still often undervalued and even intentionally surpressed.
Extensive research on curiosity has overwhelmingly shown that curiosity is undeniably positive and potentially life-changing for individuals in almost every facet of life, whilst also greatly benefitting communities and the workplace.
Curiosity activates the dopamine related areas in our brain. It lights up the same parts of the brain that anticipate rewards like money, food or sex - the same areas that maintain motivation and drive us towards a reward.
curiosity is the drive to explore, learn & discover.
Curiosity can take us inward, to reflect on ourselves and ask questions about why we act or react in certain ways, and what would happen if those things changed. It can also make us ask the same questions about the internal world of others, making us kinder and more empathetic.
It can flow outwards, to bring us to learn about one area or subject in incredible detail and depth. It can flow widely, encouraging us to connect the dots in ever expanding ways between ideas, themes and topics.
Michael Dell, Founder of Dell Technologies
“With Curiosity comes learning and new ideas. If you’re not doing that, you are going to have a real problem.”
The Benefits
A DASH of curiosity brings
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When participants in a study were curious about a fact, they were 30% more likely to remember it. Being curious inspires changes at a neurological level that support retaining more detail and recalling that detail more easily.
This ability in turn bolsters overall learning and decision making. It makes it easier to solve problems and makes both our professional and personal lives a bit richer.
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Multiple studies have shown that curiosity is the key factor in educational and professional environments where learning is celebrated. People are better at acquiring new knowledge when they are curious about the content, and curiosity and conscientiousness together enable us to achieve well in various spaces.
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Curiosity helps us build more exciting and original ideas. It leads us to new experiences and knowledge as it leads us to be consistently joining the dots between what we see in front of us and what could otherwise be possible.
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We’re more motivated when we are curious about something. Imagine feeling curious about how you might feel going to the gym, rather than bored!
Curiosity can also make learning a more rewarding experience for students. As they are interested they want to learn.
One study showed that when a participant’s curiosity had been sparked, there was not only increased activity in the hippocampus, which is the region of the brain involved in the creation of memories, but also in the brain circuit that is related to reward and pleasure.
Increased curiosity means more motivation and a lower likelihood of burnout.
idea linking
The Superpower
of idea linking
➽ How do companies get built?
➽ How are new films made?
➽ How are diverse stories told?
➽ How does innovation happen?
Idea linking is a key gift of the curiosity superpower.
It enables you to look at the Black cab network, and your phone and see Uber before anything remotely similar exists. It allows you to see a problem and find a solution well outside the given parameters of anything anyone else is currently talking about.
In life and in business, that’s a very competitive edge.
James Stephens
Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will
problem solving
How do some people face insurmountable odds on complex challenges…
yet remain positive and see a way through?
WHen Faced
with a problem
we all do
research.
➽ We Ask Friends…
➽ Look online…
➽ SEE TAROT READERS…
➽ Take a walk or a shower…
➽ Look around and gather information…
This is what gives us the data and context to help us make a choice…
CUrious people do this all the time.
Being curious in our day to day means we are more likely to find innovative solutions from our life bank of things we’ve been curious about.
Curious people are more likely to see a way through paths others think are blocked.
relationships
Better
relationships?
get curious
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Making the people around them feel more valued
Giving them a deeper understanding of those people
Making them more helpful as they are more likely to know what’s going on
Making them more patient and empathetic because they see them as a fuller human.
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Curiousity attracts us to new scenarios, and brings us out of our comfort zone. Being genuinely curious beats our shyness, because if there’s something we really want to know, we usually have to ask someone. It gives us more opportunities to bond over unique and memorable moments.
Curiosity also helps us see people we know differently, allowing us to write new stories with old friends.
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When you are curious - you’re already meeting more people and asking more questions - it naturally follows that you have more insight into how other people think, the kind of experiences they might have had, and naturally, you are able to put yourself in their shoes with more ease.
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Empathically curious employees are better than others at resolving conflicts with colleagues, more likely to receive social support, and more effective at building connections, trust, and commitment on their teams.
Curious people are more likely to have better co-worker relationships, design better products and services and spot problems that others miss. Once perceived a hindrance, curiosity is now widely understood to be the most useful workplace trait.
health
HeALTHIER & HAPPIER
Curious individuals were found to be associated with decreased symptoms of depression and anxiety and higher levels of motivation, life-satisfaction, well-being and meaning in life.
Curiosity creates dopamine, which is linked to joy
Greater resilience - From “how do I get one kid to school and another to football at the same time” to “how do I tackle climate change” a curious approach is the most helpful in seeing a way through paths that seem blocked, so you are then less likely to allow problems to make you as stressed.
Curious people are more patient. You will wait longer for an answer to a question you are curious about (perhaps because you perceive the reward to be bigger and accept that you’re going to have more fun along the way).
A person with a curious mindset can see wonders everywhere and the small joys accumulate to have a major impact on mind.
Students with high levels of curiosity are able to leverage more personal and social resources in the face of stressful situations, which contributes to improved emotional well-being.
“You cannot prevent unhappiness or sorrow entering into any life…but curiosity will insure an ever-recurring interest in life and will give you the needed impetus to turn your most baleful experience to some kind of good service.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
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Curiosity: The neglected trait that drives success, BBC
The Wick in the Candle of Learning: Epistemic Curiosity Activates Reward Circuitry and Enhances Memory, Association for Psychological Science
Curiosity made the cat more creative: Specific curiosity as a driver of creativity, Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Making Processes
Curiosity did not kill the cat, Acta Psychologica
The Business Case for Curiosity, Harvard Business Review
'Curiosity as end and means', Current Opinion on Behavioural Science
'Study Finds that Curiosity Is Key to Personal Growth in Many Spheres, Including Intimate Relationships', University at Buffalo
The Hungry Mind: Intellectual Curiosity Is the Third Pillar of Academic Performance, Perspectives on Psychological Science
