More time and effort, same curiosity: Information accessibility does not impact curiosity

For some learning problems, information is readily available with minimal time and effort. For other learning problems, substantial time and effort is needed to gain information. Recent accounts of curiosity have suggested that curiosity should be highest when learning is likely to occur and likely to be rapid. This suggests that variation in “information accessibility” might affect curiosity—dampening curiosity when information is unlikely to be gained rapidly or easily. We tested this hypothesis in three experiments with a total of 419 participants. In Experiments 1 and 2, we prompted adult participants to rate their curiosity about the answers to trivia questions. For each trivia question, they were informed that information accessibility would be high—they would receive the answer with minimal time and effort—or low—they would receive the answer with substantial time and effort. In Experiment 3, we additionally varied the probability that information search would be successful. Across studies, we found that information accessibility affected decisions to seek information, but not self-reported curiosity. This suggests that curiosity is unhindered by the practical costs of information search.