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Avoidance-avoidance conflict refers to a psychological situation where a person must choose between two or more unpleasant alternatives. These conflicts are particularly stressful because neither option is desirable. This dilemma is often expressed in sayings like "caught between a rock and a hard place" or "between the devil and the deep blue sea." For instance, individuals who fear dental procedures may find themselves torn between enduring a painful toothache or facing the...
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Updated: Jun 14, 2025

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal
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Curiosity overpowers cognitive effort avoidance tendencies.

Markus W H Spitzer1, Younes Strittmatter2, Melvin Marti3

  • 1Department of Psychology, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany.

Cognition
|May 17, 2025
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Curiosity drives people to seek answers, even when it requires significant cognitive effort. This study shows that the desire to know information can outweigh the natural tendency to avoid mental exertion.

Keywords:
Cognitive controlCognitive effortCuriosityDecision-makingIntrinsic rewardLearning

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Behavioral Economics

Background:

  • Curiosity is a fundamental human trait driving information seeking.
  • Previous research shows curiosity influences resource allocation (time, tokens).
  • Limited experimental data exists on willingness to exert cognitive effort for information.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if curiosity motivates individuals to expend cognitive effort to obtain answers.
  • To determine if curiosity can overcome innate cognitive effort avoidance tendencies.
  • To examine the conditions under which cognitive effort is employed for information acquisition.

Main Methods:

  • Three pre-registered experiments were conducted.
  • Participants rated curiosity for trivia questions.
  • Cognitive effort was manipulated using random-dot kinematograms (RDKs) with varying motion coherence.

Main Results:

  • Curiosity significantly predicted willingness to exert cognitive effort.
  • Participants avoided high-effort tasks when curiosity was low or effort didn't guarantee information.
  • Curiosity motivated cognitive effort exertion when no low-effort alternative was available.

Conclusions:

  • Curiosity is a powerful motivator that can override cognitive effort avoidance.
  • The decision to exert cognitive effort is contingent on curiosity levels and perceived utility.
  • Findings contribute to understanding the motivational underpinnings of information seeking behavior.