Curiosity Is Contagious: A Social Influence Intervention to Induce Curiosity

Our actions and decisions are regularly influenced by the social environment around us. Can cues be leveraged to induce curiosity affect subsequent behavior? Across two experiments, we show that is contagious: The can influence people's about answers scientific questions. Participants were presented with everyday questions science from a popular on-line forum, these shown high or low number of up-votes as cue popularity. indicated their answers, they given an opportunity reveal subset those answers. reported greater when (vs. low) up-votes, also more likely choose up-votes. These effects partially mediated surprise inferred usefulness knowledge, dramatic effect in reducing than boosting curiosity. Taken together, results highlight important role information plays shaping our