@article{178581,
  author = {Rachit Dubey and Hermish Mehta and Tania Lombrozo},
  title = {Curiosity is Contagious: A Social Influence Intervention to Induce Curiosity},
  abstract = {<p><span>Our actions and decisions are regularly influenced by the social environment around us. Can social</span><span>cues be leveraged to induce curiosity and affect subsequent behavior? Across two experiments, we</span><span> show that curiosity is contagious: the social environment can influence people{\textquoteright}s curiosity about the</span><span> answers to scientific questions. Participants were presented with everyday questions about science </span><span>from a popular on-line forum, and these were shown with a high or low number of up-votes as a </span><span>social cue to popularity. Participants indicated their curiosity about the answers, and they were </span><span>given an opportunity to reveal a subset of those answers. Participants reported greater curiosity </span><span>about the answers to questions when the questions were presented with a high (vs. low) number of</span><span> up-votes, and they were also more likely to choose to reveal the answers to questions with a high</span><span> (vs. low) number of up-votes. These effects were partially mediated by surprise and by the inferred</span><span>usefulness of knowledge, with a more dramatic effect of low up-votes in reducing curiosity than of </span><span>high up-votes in boosting curiosity. Taken together, these results highlight the important role social </span><span>information plays in shaping our curiosity.</span></p>

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},
  year = {2021},
  journal = {Cognitive Science},
  volume = {45},
  pages = {e12937},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12937},
  language = {eng},
}