curiosity
Curiosity (also curiosity ) is the desire to experience new things and, in particular, to get to know the hidden, which appears as a stimulus.
Delimitations
Curiosity can be geared towards constantly changing events in order to satisfy a desire for sensations . With this variant of the term, the emotional and motivating components are high.
If the curiosity is geared towards an interest in knowledge , research or intellectual aspects are in the foreground. This form of curiosity is also curiosity called (historical Philomathie of Greek philomathía ).
Morbid curiosity is called scopophilia .
Cultural history
People have always experienced that exploring new things is often associated with dangers, but also opens up opportunities. Fear is not always a dampening factor for curiosity, but can also inspire it - for example as a search for the "ultimate kick" in today's leisure society .
For Herodotus , curiosity about historical contexts was the main motive for becoming a historian. For the Ionic natural philosophers it was the drive to want to look “behind things”, as well as for Plato , for whom “ amazement ” (Greek “thaumazein”) represented the beginning of all philosophy . Quote:
"The amazement is the attitude of a man who truly loves wisdom, yes there is no other beginning of philosophy than this."
The Egyptologist Jan Assmann characterizes the cultural encounter between ancient Greece and Egypt as a one-sided curiosity : In a review of his study Wisdom and Mystery it says:
“You can see from the examples that two neighboring cultures could hardly be more different. Yet they attracted each other. Whether it was about theology and priesthood, the constitution of state and society, dealing with the past and history, the medium of writing or the relationship to death and eternity: Assmann shows that Greeks and Egyptians exchanged ideas, courted one another , misunderstood, differentiated from each other. "
Augustine places the center of curiosity in the eyes. Vision has a stronger tendency than other senses to wander into the distance. It goes beyond the body and the immediate environment of the respective person, but it can also be a look ahead and look back and thus transcend the present. But in the end, curiosity remains a vice for him:
“And the greed disguises itself as a thirst for knowledge, although you have the highest knowledge about everything. Greed wants to have a lot; but you have gathered all wealth around you. "
In the Middle Ages, Thomas v. Aquinas the curiosity ( curiositas ) to the vices , which he contrasts with the virtue of the curiosity ( studiositas ).
In 19th century society, curiosity was viewed primarily as a feminine trait. In the book Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffmann , the curiosity in the story of Paulinchen is presented, which bears the title The sad story with the lighter . Your experiment with the matches ends tragically. The book Struwwelliese , which follows the bestseller, also goes in this direction. What was partially outlawed at the time is now often considered to be contemporary: a satisfaction of curiosity in adventure tourism or in the form of so-called “border crossers” .
present
The author, columnist and essayist Harald Martenstein wrote in 2012:
“Every halfway interesting person and every everyday action [is] now an object of almost uninterrupted observation […], not least because of the reader reporters, but also because of the thousands of possibilities offered by the Internet and because of the cell phone cameras. But above all because people are curious beings and because curiosity, like any need, can be used economically in a commodity society. […] Nobody is safe from virtue watch , not the young person with age-typical thirst for experience, not the husband on the wrong track, not even the young mother. "
psychology
In personality psychology (intellectual) curiosity is an important aspect of the personality trait openness ( openness ). It is embedded in the broader concept of openness to experience and has a moderate correlation with intelligence and creativity.
In connection with curiosity, Berlyne is often quoted in psychology, who carried out (animal) experimental studies. One result related to the question of which situational conditions could arouse curiosity. Berlyne found the four aspects for this
- Novelty ,
- Complexity ,
- Uncertainty and
- Conflict .
Furthermore, Berlyne differentiates between specific and diverse curiosity on the one hand, and between perceptual and epistemic curiosity on the other . According to Berlyne's activation theory, specific curiosity behavior is more likely to be shown when an organism is exposed to many environmental stimuli. One dedicates oneself to individual aspects of the environment in order to explore them and thus to lower the subjective stimulus level. If there are too few stimuli in the environment, an organism shows various stimulus behavior, so it looks for new stimuli in the environment in order to reduce boredom. On the other hand, a medium level of stimulation or activation is perceived as pleasant.
A 2015 study shows that in order to clear up ambiguity, people are willing to research new things, even if it can have negative consequences.
Trivia
The Mars rover of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission was named Curiosity ( English for 'curiosity') after a suggestion by a student .
See also
literature
- DE Berlyne: Conflict, arousal, and curiosity. McGraw-Hill, New York NY et al. 1960 (German: conflict, excitation, curiosity. On the psychology of cognitive motivation. Klett, Stuttgart 1974, ISBN 3-12-920610-8 ).
- Donata Elschenbroich (Ed.): Instructions for curiosity. Basics of Japanese education (= Edition Suhrkamp 1934 = NF Bd. 934). Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-518-11934-6 .
- Neil Kenny: The Uses of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2004, ISBN 0-19-927136-4 .
- Carolin Duttlinger, Johannes Birgfeld (Eds.): Curiosity in German Literature and Culture from 1700 to the Present (= Oxford German Studies. Vol. 38, No. 2, ISSN 0078-7191 ). Maney, London 2009.
Web links
- Image of science: Knowledge makes you high.
- Heidi Dawley, The disorder of these times, neophilia (2006)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Johannes Hoffmeister: Dictionary of philosophical terms. Meiner, Hamburg 1955, Lemma Curiosity.
- ↑ Scopophilia = pathological curiosity, Duden.
- ↑ One-sided curiosity. In: Berliner Zeitung of September 20, 2000
- ↑ Augustine: Confessions , 397-401. Second book: About the vices.
- ↑ Summa theologiae , Part II-II, Qu. 166, Art. 1-2
- ↑ Heinrich Hoffmann: Der Struwwelpeter. 56th edition. CBJ, Munich 1968, not paged.
- ↑ zeit.de June 16, 2012: The Terror of Virtue. - You souldn't smoke. You shouldn't have any secrets. You should do what everyone is doing. And remember: you are being watched! How the belief in the imposed good creates a modern dictatorship with the help of laws, ordinances and media surveillance.
- ^ Robert R. McCrae: Openness to Experience: Expanding the boundaries of Factor V. In: European Journal of Personality. 8 (1994) 4, pp. 251-272.
- ↑ DE Berlyne: conflict, excitement, curiosity. On the psychology of cognitive motivation . Klett, Stuttgart 1960 a. 1974.
- ↑ Klaus Rothermund, Andreas Motivation and Emotion . VS Verlag, 2011.
- ↑ Christopher K. Hsee, Bowen Ruan: The Pandora Effect. The Power and Peril of Curiosity , Psychological Science, March 21, 2016, doi : 10.1177 / 0956797616631733
- ↑ NASA Selects Student's Entry as New Mars Rover Name. May 27, 2009, accessed July 31, 2020 .