External incentives change the relation between confidence and epistemic curiosity

Epistemic curiosity, defined as the desire for knowledge, is commonly viewed as an intrinsic, non-instrumental (i.e., not directed toward immediate tangible benefits) drive to seek information. Prior research has shown that epistemic curiosity is influenced by subjective confidence - the perceived certainty individuals hold regarding their knowledge or decisions. Recent evidence suggests that environmental structure determines whether curiosity is driven by low- or medium-confidence stimuli. However, the role of external incentives in shaping the curiosity-confidence relationship remains poorly understood. To address this gap, the present study directly compared curiosity and subsequent information-seeking behaviors across conditions with and without performance-based extrinsic incentives. In Experiment 1 (no incentives), participants shifted from randomly selecting questions to focusing on medium-confidence questions as learning opportunities increased. In contrast, in Experiment 2 (with incentives), participants consistently prioritized low-confidence questions to maximize their knowledge and test scores. These findings demonstrate that extrinsic incentives significantly alter individuals' information-seeking strategies, underscoring the importance of integrating both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to optimize learning. Our results suggest that a full understanding of the curiosity-confidence link requires explicit separation between studies conducted with and without extrinsic rewards, a distinction often overlooked in prior research.