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FB Kolloq 24: Luke Smillie

„Who wants to know? Personality and information-seeking”

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Prof. Dr. Luke Smillie, University of Melbourne, Australia
„Who wants to know? Personality and information-seeking”

Humans and animals appear to value information even when it is not a means to some end. That is, they appear to value non-instrumental information. This might be understood in terms of appetitive motivation (e.g., the excitement of learning something new) or aversive motivation (e.g., the discomfort of not knowing). Personality correlates of information-seeking can help shed light on these processes. In this talk I will describe several recent studies examining personality correlates of information seeking (e.g., anxiety and curiosity). Some of these studies additionally examine (a) contextual factors that may in-fluence these personality associations, and (b) affective states that may mediate these associations, and (b) neurobiological factors that may underlie these as-sociations. The emerging conclusion from this work is that even ‘non-instrumental’ information-seeking may serve multiple functions, and that those functions determine ‘who wants to know’.