Term of Award
Summer 2014
Degree Name
Master of Science in Experimental Psychology (M.S.)
Document Type and Release Option
Thesis (open access)
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Department
Department of Psychology
Committee Chair
Ty Boyer
Committee Member 1
Karen Naufel
Committee Member 2
Wendy Chambers
Abstract
Curiosity, or the drive for information and experiences that motivates exploration, plays a role in intellectual development. Curiosity is perhaps essential to education and intellectual achievement, but curiosity research is limited. Curiosity has been thought a motivation for learning and a cause of non-sanctioned behaviors and behavioral disorders. This prompts a connection with decision-making, specifically risky decision-making, perhaps with curiosity as a motivating force. In Experiment 1, college students were primed with curiosity, then participated in a lab-based behavioral measure of risk-taking, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, and answered self-report inventories concerning risk-taking and curiosity. In Experiment 2, 4th and 5th grade students were primed with curiosity and then participated in a modified version of the BART. In both experiments, risk-taking did not vary as a function of curiosity. Limitations to the current research, and potential avenues for future investigations, are discussed.
Recommended Citation
Gibson, Carolyn E., "Curiosity Killed the Cat: Investigating a Link between Curiosity and Risk-Taking Propensity" (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1135.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/1135
