Positive associations among curiosity lability & depression, & negative ones among curiosity lability & life satisfaction and flourishing; curiosity is higher on days of greater happiness & physical activity

Within‐person variability in curiosity during daily life and associations with well‐being. David M. Lydon‐Staley, Perry Zurn, Danielle S. Bassett. The Journal of Personality, September 13 2019. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12515

Abstract
Objective: Curiosity promotes engagement in novel situations and the accruement of resources that promote well‐being. An open question is the extent to which curiosity lability, the degree to which curiosity fluctuates over short timescales, impacts well‐being.

Method: We use data from a 21‐day daily diary as well as trait measures in 167 participants (mean age = 25.37 years, SD = 7.34) to test (a) the importance of curiosity lability for depression, flourishing, and life satisfaction, (b) day‐to‐day associations among curiosity and happiness, depressed mood, anxiety, and physical activity, and (c) the role of day's mood as a mediator between physical activity and curiosity.

Results: We observe positive associations among curiosity lability and depression, as well as negative associations among curiosity lability and both life satisfaction and flourishing. Curiosity is higher on days of greater happiness and physical activity, and lower on days of greater depressed mood. We find evidence consistent with day's depressed mood and happiness being mediators between physical activity and curiosity.

Conclusions: Greater consistency in curiosity is associated with well‐being. We identify several potential sources of augmentation and blunting of curiosity in daily life and provide support for purported mechanisms linking physical activity to curiosity via mood.


4 DISCUSSION
Curiosity promotes engagement with novel and challenging stimuli and situations, leading to the accruement of resources, and promoting well‐being (Fredrickson & Cohn, 2008). It is through consistently acting on one's curiosity that high trait curiosity is thought to promote well‐being (Kashdan et al., 2018), necessitating a consideration of the extent to which curiosity lability, fluctuations in curiosity over the time scale of days, and a measure of inconsistency in one's curiosity, may undermine well‐being. We quantified between‐person differences in curiosity lability over the course of 21 days and tested the associations between curiosity lability and depression, life satisfaction, and flourishing. Consistent with the hypothesized importance of consistent curiosity in promoting well‐being, individuals with relatively greater fluctuations in curiosity around their average level of curiosity during the daily diary protocol had decreased life satisfaction and increased depression. Notably, the association between curiosity lability and both life satisfaction and depression was significant above and beyond a trait measure of curiosity, indicating the added value of considering dynamics in curiosity for understanding well‐being. A main effect of curiosity lability on flourishing was not observed. Instead, inconsistency in curiosity was associated with lower flourishing only for participants with below average levels of trait curiosity.

After revealing the importance of within‐person fluctuations in curiosity for well‐being, we examined the extent to which happiness, depressed mood, anxiety, and physical activity acted as potential sources of augmentation and blunting of curiosity in daily life. In line with previous laboratory findings (Rodrigue et al., 1987) and perspectives that positive emotions motivate exploration (Diener & Diener, 1996) while negative emotions restrict exploration (Fredrickson, 2004), we observed that days of higher than usual depressed mood were associated with lower than usual curiosity, and that days of higher than usual happiness were associated with higher than usual curiosity. These results suggest that negative associations among depressed mood and curiosity generalize to ecologically valid, naturalistic fluctuations in mood and curiosity occurring during the course of daily life.

Within‐person variability in anxiety was not associated with changes in curiosity. Due in great part to the Latin sense of cura as meticulous, painstaking, even obsessive care (Leigh, 2013), curiosity and anxiety have been densely intertwined historically, promulgating the notion that curiosity “has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness, and anxiety” (Burke, 1958, p. 31). Early psychological theories proposed that curiosity may result from the identification of contradictions and ambiguities that leads to an unpleasant feeling some have interpreted as anxiety (Berlyne, 1960; Dollard & Miller, 1950; Spielberger & Starr, 1994). Other perspectives view anxiety as a state that interferes with the exploratory behavior characteristic of curiosity (Kashdan et al., 2004). The contrasting associations among anxiety and curiosity may be differentially present prior to curiosity‐driven exploration and during the process of curiosity‐driven engagement with novel stimuli and situations. Testing these distinct pathways will require repeated measures at more fine‐grained timescales than were available in the daily diary reports in the present study.

We replicate previously observed between‐person associations among curiosity and physical activity (Brand et al., 2010), with higher levels of average physical activity across the 21‐day daily diary protocol associated with higher levels of average curiosity. In addition to replicating this between‐person finding, our collection of intensive repeated measures allowed us to disentangle within‐person and between‐person associations among physical activity and curiosity, and to demonstrate that the association among physical activity and curiosity was also evident at the within‐person level, with days of greater than usual physical activity being associated with greater than usual curiosity. Results of the within‐person mediation analyses are consistent with frameworks suggesting that physical activity's association with curiosity is partially mediated via physical activity's effects on positive and depressed mood (Berger & Owen, 1992; Penedo & Dahn, 2005; Rehor et al., 2001). Further study of physical activity using modes, scales, and intensities titrated to disabled bodies, moreover, could deepen and extend the present study to account for a population significantly understudied in the literature on curiosity.

6 CONCLUSIONS
In summary, the present study extends previous examinations of the association among curiosity and well‐being by demonstrating that the extent to which one consistently reports feeling curious during the course of daily life is associated with well‐being. The findings emphasize the importance of considering dynamics in curiosity and, by observing within‐person associations among curiosity, depressed mood, happiness, and physical activity, begin the task of identifying potential sources of augmentation and blunting of curiosity in daily life that may be targeted to realize consistent curiosity.