Recent years have seen renewed attention to curiosity―recognizing, seeking out, and preferring things that are new, unusual, and outside of one’s normal experience. Curiosity includes two components, the mindful immersion component—rapt attention to interesting things and people—and the exploratory striving component—the desire to learn about whatever captured their attention. By increasing exposure to information and experiences that were not previously available, curiosity serves a broader function of building knowledge, skills, and social relationships. When exposed to new information and experiences, there is often tension with prior ideas that may no longer fit. When our existing ideas about ourselves and the world are inadequate for integrating new information, this prompts us … Continue reading Todd Kashdan