Testing the Information-Seeking Theory of Openness/Intellect

Resumen

Why are open people open? A recent theory suggests that openness/intellect reflects sensitivity to the reward value of information, but so far this has undergone few direct tests. To assess preferences for information, we constructed a novel task, adapted from information-seeking paradigms within decision science, in which participants could choose to see information related to a guessing game they had just completed. Across two studies (one exploratory, n = 151; one confirmatory, n = 301), openness/intellect did not predict information-seeking. Our results thus do not support a straightforward version of the theory, whereby open individuals display a general-purpose sensitivity to any sort of new information. However, trait curiosity (arguably a facet of openness/intellect) predicted information-seeking in both studies, and uncertainty intolerance (inversely related to openness/intellect) predicted information-seeking in Study 2. Thus, it is possible that the domain-level null association masks two divergent information-seeking pathways, one approach-motivated (curiosity), and one avoidance-motivated (uncertainty intolerance). It remains to be seen whether these conflicting motivations can be isolated, and if doing so reveals any association between information-seeking and the broader openness/intellect domain.

Áreas y palabras clave

Cómo citar (APA 7)

Jach, H., & Smillie, L. (2020). Testing the Information-Seeking Theory of Openness/Intellect. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2271