Research from an international team of psychologists, including those from UCLA, has found that certain types of curiosity can increase well into old age. This discovery challenges previous research indicating that curiosity declines with age. The study suggests that older adults who maintain curiosity and seek to learn new things relevant to their interests may be able to offset or even prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Conversely, a lack of curiosity may put individuals at risk for dementia.
“The psychology literature shows that oftentimes what’s known as trait curiosity, or a person’s general level of curiosity, tends to decline with age,” said UCLA psychologist Alan Castel, the senior author of the study published in PLOS One. “But we thought that was a little bit strange and went against some of the things we saw in some of the older adult participants in our experiments.”
The research team included Mary Whatley, who led the study as a doctoral student at UCLA and is now an assistant professor at Western Carolina University, along with Kou Murayama and Michiko Sakaki from the University of Tübingen and Kochi University of Technology. They focused on differentiating between two types of curiosity: state curiosity and trait curiosity.
State curiosity refers to the momentary feeling of interest people experience when asked about specific topics, while trait curiosity is considered a personality trait. The researchers recruited participants aged 20 to 84 to assess their levels of both types through questionnaires and trivia questions.
Their analysis revealed that although trait curiosity generally declined across adulthood, state curiosity increased sharply after middle age. This pattern mirrors research showing a dip in happiness during midlife.
“Our findings fit with some of my work on selectivity theory,” Castel explained. “As we get older, we don’t want to stop learning; we’re just more selective about what we want to learn.”
Castel noted that maintaining a level of curiosity could help keep individuals sharp as they age. He also mentioned that people tend to forget information that doesn’t engage their interest.
“As we get older, maybe we want to be focused on the things that are important,” Castel said. “Anecdotally, a lot of older adults I speak to say that it’s important to stay curious.”
This research received support from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
