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. 2020 Apr 27;18(1):45–53. doi: 10.1007/s10433-020-00567-6

Association between age and intellectual curiosity: the mediating roles of future time perspective and importance of curiosity

Li Chu 1, Jeanne L Tsai 2, Helene H Fung 1,✉
PMCID: PMC7925741  PMID: 33746680

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the underlying mechanism behind the association of age and intellectual curiosity. Previous studies generally showed a negative association between age and intellectual curiosity. To shed light on this association, we hypothesize that older adults become more selective in where they invest their curiosity compared with younger adults. The present study (N = 857) first examined the association between age and intellectual curiosity and then the mediation roles of future time perspective and perceived importance of curiosity in the association. The moderation effect of culture was also included to test the generalizability of this model across European Americans, Chinese Americans, and Hong Kong Chinese. The findings suggested that there was a significant negative association between age and intellectual curiosity, even after controlling for sex, culture, and education level. The moderated serial multiple mediation model demonstrated that the indirect effect of age on curiosity through future time perspective and importance of curiosity was significant across all three cultural groups while age did not have a direct effect on intellectual curiosity. This finding suggested that, as future time becomes more limited with age, curiosity is less valued; hence, curiosity is negatively associated with the advance of age. This study illustrates the importance of future time and perceived importance of curiosity in explaining age-related differences in curiosity and sheds light on the situations in which older adults may be as intellectually curious as younger adults.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1007/s10433-020-00567-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Keywords: Aging, Curiosity, Value, Culture, Intellectual curiosity

Introduction

According to Kashdan et al. (2018), curiosity is defined as “the recognition, pursuit and desire to explore novel, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous events,” which initiates and facilitates learning. Being curious and knowledge seeking has been associated with a number of positive outcomes, including better physical, psychological, cognitive, and social well-being. For physical well-being, a 5-year longitudinal study by Swan and Carmelli (1996) found that older adults who survived tended to report higher levels of state and trait curiosity than those who deceased. These researchers further suggested that being curious might have allowed these surviving older adults to cope with the physical and environmental challenges in old age better than their non-surviving peers. In terms of psychological well-being, curiosity is positively associated with life satisfaction, positive effect, and meaning of life (Gallagher and Lopez 2007; Jovanovic and Brdaric 2012; Jovanović and Gavrilov-Jerković 2014; Kashdan and Steger 2007; Wang and Li 2015). Regarding cognitive well-being, curiosity was linked to better memory performance in both behavioral (McGillivray et al. 2015) and fMRI (Kang et al. 2009) studies. With respect to social well-being, a higher level of trait curiosity is linked to better emotional intelligence or better capability to monitor self and others’ emotions (Leonard and Harvey 2007), better emotion expression, better sense of humor, greater tolerance to anxiety, and less usage of aggression (Kashdan et al. 2013a, b; Kashdan et al. 2011; Kashdan and Roberts 2004), which all seem to be important for maintaining healthy social relationships. In brief, being curious is related to many outcomes that are desirable for both younger and older adults.

There are many subtypes of curiosity that are categorized based on the object of curiosity, such as social curiosity, intellectual curiosity, and perceptual curiosity (Grossnickle 2016). Among these different subtypes, intellectual or epistemic curiosity (i.e., the desire or need for information and knowledge) has been one of the more commonly studied subtypes due to its distinct contribution in information and knowledge acquisition. Given intellectual curiosity’s unique role in learning, it is often observed in and studied among children who are constantly being curious about their surroundings and the world and among younger adults who are pursuing an education (e.g., Piotrowski et al. 2014; Engel 2011). However, intellectual curiosity is also relevant in old age. Late adulthood is a period of time full of transitions, such as retirement, health status changes, and living arrangement changes. To facilitate smoother adaptation, there are many novel services, technologies, and products that are dedicated to older adults (Schulz et al. 2015). As pointed out by Barnard et al. (2013), exploration and experimentation are essential for learning novelties. With less intellectual curiosity or motivation to learn, older adults may be more reluctant to seek out or try out alternative options, which can prevent them from learning and utilizing the readily available support during their life transitions in old age. Therefore, it would be essential to understand the association between age and intellectual curiosity.

The relationship between age and curiosity has been investigated in the past, but different studies targeted different subtypes of curiosity (Sakaki et al. 2018). While there were some studies that found no age differences in situational curiosity (Camp et al. 1985) and learning motivation (Gegenfurtner and Vauras 2012), many studies found an age-related decline of curiosity, especially when measuring intellectual curiosity. For example, Engelhard and Monsaas (1988) observed that school-related curiosity decreased as a function of age and grade level among elementary students. A correlational study by Dellenbach and Zimprich (2008) also showed a negative association between age and intellectual curiosity. A longitudinal study (Zimprich et al. 2009) found that older adults showed a lower level of intellectual curiosity when compared with middle-aged adults. Moreover, Mascherek and Zimprich (2012) reported that there was a small but significant mean-level decrease of intellectual curiosity cross a 5-year time period. In addition, personality studies consistently found a decline in openness to experience after late adolescence (e.g., Costa et al. 2000; Donnellan and Lucas 2008; Fung and Ng 2006; Labouvie-Vief et al. 2000). Findings of these personality studies are relevant because intellectual curiosity is considered one of the sub-dimensions of openness to experience (Costa and McCrae 1992; Saucier 1998); thus, these studies provide additional evidences for an age-related decline of intellectual curiosity with age.

Although the current literature has not yet offered empirically tested explanations that specifically address why intellectual curiosity may decrease with the advance of age, aging theories, such as socioemotional selectivity theory, offer some relevant ideas. Socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen 1995, 2006) posits that, as people age, they perceive time as more limited, and as a result, become more selective in investing their time and resources. This theory (Carstensen et al. 2003) focuses on two main classes of goals: information seeking goals (e.g., acquiring knowledge or developing new social ties) and emotionally meaningful goals (e.g., feeling needed by others or balancing emotional states). Specifically, when time is perceived as open-ended, one is motivated to expand one’s network, knowledge, and skill set in order to prepare for the long and unpredictable future ahead. In contrast, when time is perceived as finite, long-term expansive goals are less likely to be realized, so one is more likely to shift his/her focus to the present and focus on goals that provide more immediate satisfaction. Thus, this theory predicts that as time becomes more limited, older adults would prioritize emotionally meaningful goals over information seeking goals. Granted, there can be individual differences in performing information seeking behaviors. Yet, this theory predicts that people who perceive future as limited are more likely to perform these actions for emotionally meaningful reasons. In other words, information- or knowledge-seeking behaviors are more likely to occur if people with more limited future time perspective perceive their importance. From this perspective, it is possible that, in general, older adults with more limited future time perspective perceive less value or importance in curiosity, which may explain why level of curiosity is lower among older adults when compared to younger adults. However, the potential mediating roles of future time perspective and perceived importance of curiosity on intellectual curiosity have not been explored in the past.

Therefore, the present study has three aims: (1) to replicate the previously observed association between age and intellectual curiosity, (2) to test the mediating roles of future time perspective and importance of curiosity in the association, and (3) to investigate the generalizability of this model in different cultural contexts. Specifically, we predict that age is negatively associated with intellectual curiosity, and the association is mediated by more limited future time perspective and reduced perceived importance of curiosity. Finally, we included three cultural groups in this study: European Americans, Chinese Americans, and Hong Kong Chinese, which allows us to examine the mediation model under different cultural contexts. We expect this model to fit well for all three groups.

Method

Participants

This study, as part of a study examining emotion and aging attitudes (e.g., Tsai et al. 2018), recruited a total of 857 participants with equal ratio of males and females. This sample included 281 younger adults (below age 40 years), 273 middle-aged adults (age 40–59 years), and 303 older adults (age 60 years or above). Five hundred and thirty-six participants were from the USA, including 268 European Americans and 268 Chinese Americans, and they were recruited via flyers posted and announcements made in public places and via Internet advertisements (e.g., Craig’s List) in the San Francisco Bay Area. Three hundred and twenty-one participants were from Hong Kong, and they were recruited from the local community centers, senior centers, churches, and other public areas. We performed a power analysis using a R package, WebPower (Zhang and Mai 2018), and the results suggested that the power for each path was reasonable for psychological studies (all ≥ .7) using the current sample size. There were no significant differences in age, percentage of a particular age group, percentage of a particular sex or depressive symptom scores across the three cultural groups. However, there were fewer college educated participants among the Hong Kong Chinese sample relative to the European and Chinese American samples, which is representative of the respective populations. For sample characteristic details, see Table 1.

Table 1.

Demographic characteristics

Characteristic European American Chinese American Hong Kong Chinese Total sample
Education
 High school 86 (32.1%) 92 (34.3%) 217 (67.6%) 395 (46.1%)
 College 182 (67.9%) 176 (65.7%) 102 (31.8%) 460 (53.7%)
Sex
 Male 139 (51.9%) 135 (50.4%) 154 (48.0%) 428 (49.9%)
 Female 129 (48.1%) 133 (49.6%) 166 (51.7%) 428 (49.9%)
CESDa 15.8 ± 4.8 15.4 ± 6.4 16.2 ± 6.4 15.8 ± 5.9
Total 268 268 321 857
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Data are presented as n (%) or mean ± SD

aCESD score is out of 60

Given variability within cultural groups (e.g., some Chinese people living in Hong Kong may have been raised in Western cultures rather than in Hong Kong), the following inclusion criteria were set to ensure sufficient cultural orientation toward the cultures of interest in this study. For European Americans, participants must (1) be currently living in the USA, (2) have been born and raised in the USA, (3) have parents who were born and raised in the USA, and (4) have ancestors from Western and Northern Europe. For Chinese Americans, participants must (1) be currently living in the USA, (2) have been primarily raised in a Chinese region (including China, Hong Kong or Taiwan) or the USA, and (3) have parents who were born and raised in a Chinese region. For Hong Kong Chinese, participants must (1) be currently living in Hong Kong, (2) have been primarily raised in mainland China or Hong Kong, and (3) have parents who were born and raised in a Chinese region.

Measures

All of the scales have been translated and back-translated from English into Chinese, based on procedures outlined by Brislin (1980). For the mean and standard deviation of each variable for each cultural group, please see Table 2. We also tested the measurement invariance of the intellectual curiosity and future time perspective scales, please see Supplementary Material for details.

Table 2.

Means and SD of the key variables

Variables European American Chinese American Hong Kong Chinese Total sample
Age 52.3 ± 18.7 50.2 ± 17.9 47.6 ± 21.7 49.9 ± 19.7
 Younger adults 80 (29.9%) 89 (33.2%) 112 (34.9%) 281 (32.8%)
 Middle-aged 86 (32.1%) 88 (32.8%) 99 (30.8%) 273 (31.9%)
 Older adults 102 (38.1%) 91 (34.0%) 110 (34.3%) 303 (35.4%)
Intellectual curiosity 3.81 ± .83 3.39 ± .69 3.19 ± .81 3.45 ± .85
Importance of curiosity 4.72 ± 1.09 4.15 ± 1.26 4.08 ± 1.23 4.30 ± 1.23
FTP 4.39 ± 1.29 4.17 ± 1.28 4.23 ± .93 4.26 ± 1.17
Total 268 268 321 857
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Data are presented as n (%) or mean ± SD

Intellectual curiosity

This construct was captured by a 3-item subscale, known as “intellectual interests,” of the openness to experience scale in the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (Costa and McCrae 1992; Saucier 1998). Each item was measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Items included “I have little interest in speculating on the nature of the universe or the human condition” (recoded), “I have a lot of intellectual curiosity”, and “I often enjoy playing with theories or abstract ideas”. Hence, a higher score indicates a higher level of intellectual curiosity. The reliability of this sample was slightly below the conventional standard (i.e., .70; Cronbach’s α = .62). However, internal consistency for personality measures tend to vary a lot (McCrae et al. 2011), and our result is similar to the previous study using the same scale (Chapman 2007; α = .52 among middle-aged adults; α = .64 among younger adults). Therefore, we decided to keep the measure.

Importance of curiosity

This construct was measured using 3 items extracted from the 57-item Schwartz Social Values Scale (Schwartz 1992). Participants had to rate how important they thought the particular characteristic was to them on a Likert scale of 0 (not at all important) to 7 (extremely important). This study used the following items: “varied life (filled with challenge, novelty, and change)”, “broad-minded (tolerant of different ideas and beliefs)”, and “curious (interested in everything, exploring).” The reliability was slightly below the conventional standard (i.e., .70; Cronbach’s α = .62). Yet, this result is comparable to previous studies using the same measure (Merk et al. 2017).

Future time perspective

This construct was assessed using the 10-item Future Time Perspective scale (Carstensen and Lang 1996; Rohr et al. 2017), which asked participants to indicate their agreement to each item on a Likert scale of 1 (very untrue) to 7 (very true). Sample items include “Many opportunities await me in the future” and “As I get older, I begin to experience time as limited.” Three items were recoded such that a lower mean score represented more limited future time perspective. The reliability of the scale was high (Cronbach’s α = .89). The Chinese version of this FTP scale was used in previous studies of similar populations (e.g., Fung et al. 2001; Jiang et al. 2016). The measurement equivalence of the scale across the English and Chinese versions has been established in Rohr et al. (2017).

Depressive symptoms

This covariate variable was measured by the 20-item Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CESD; Radloff 1977) where participants rated the frequency of specific symptoms, such as poor appetite or felt depressed, on a Likert scale of 0 (rarely or none of the time) to 3 (most or almost all the time). The sum (out of 60) was calculated to determine the risk for clinical depression. The reliability of the scale was excellent (Cronbach’s α = .92).

Data collection and data analyses

Measures were mailed to participants so they could complete the packet at home. For some older adults who needed the questions to be read to them, a research assistant was arranged to support them to complete the study either at home or in a laboratory. European American participants completed measures in English; Hong Kong Chinese participants completed measures in Chinese; and Chinese American participants were given the option to complete the questionnaires in English or Chinese. Measures were translated from English into Chinese and back-translated from Chinese into English.

To address the first hypothesis, a linear regression model was used to understand the association between age and intellectual curiosity. Next, to examine the serial mediating roles of future time perspective and importance of curiosity on the association between age and curiosity in different cultural groups, the template of model 92 in Macro PROCESS, SPSS Statistics 24 (Hayes 2013) was used. This analysis allowed us to test both the second and the third hypotheses concurrently. In this model, age was entered as the independent variable; intellectual curiosity was entered as the dependent variable. Future time perspective was entered as the first mediator, importance of curiosity was entered as the second mediator, and culture was entered as the moderator. This model allowed us to examine the direct and the 3 specific indirect effects from age to intellectual curiosity (see Fig. 1 for details). More specifically, the total effect of age on intellectual curiosity consisted of a direct effect of age and the 3 indirect effects through both and either one of future time perspective and importance of curiosity. These paths are represented in solid lines in Fig. 1 because they are central to the main hypotheses. All of the paths were moderated by culture (i.e., whether the participant was a European American, a Chinese American or a Hong Kong Chinese). Since cultural differences are not the main concern of this paper, cultural moderation paths are represented in dotted lines in Fig. 1. In these analyses, we controlled for the effect of sex, education, and depressive symptoms, but the results remained the same even without controlling for these variables.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

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The conceptual diagram for the moderated serial multiple mediator model with two mediators presented in solid lines. Culture moderations are presented with dotted lines

Results

Association between age and intellectual curiosity

Table 3 shows the correlations between all the key variables. Age was significantly and negatively associated with intellectual curiosity (r = −.180, p < .001). At the same time, older age significantly correlated with more limited future time perspective (r = −.531, p < .001), and limited future time perspective was significantly associated with less perceived importance of curiosity (r = .320, p < .001).

Table 3.

Pearson correlation table of all key variables

Measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Age –
2. Intellectual curiosity − .180*** –
3. Importance of curiosity − .176*** .414*** –
4. FTP − .531*** .243*** .320*** –
5. Ethnicity − .099** − .309*** − .212*** − .055 –
6. Sex − .011 .165*** .024 .023 − .031 –
7. Education − .031 .010 .053 .025 .058 .048 –
8. CESD − .186*** .032 .012 .020 .034 − .048 .006 –
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* p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001

We then conducted a linear regression analysis to investigate whether the association of age and intellectual curiosity differed by cultural groups. We dummy-coded cultures: Chinese Americans were chosen as the comparison group because this group was under the cultural influence from both sides, which offers a way to directly compare European Americans (dummy coded as 1, W1) with Hong Kong Chinese (dummy coded as 2, W2). We regressed age, the culture dummy codes and their interaction terms on intellectual curiosity. Our finding suggested that there was a negative association between age and intellectual curiosity (β = −.01, SE= .003, p < .001). However, the interaction terms with culture were not significant, indicating that the negative association between age and intellectual curiosity did not differ across the three cultural groups (see Table 4 for details).

Table 4.

Regression results using intellectual curiosity as criterion

Antecedent Coeff. SE p
(Intercept) 3.80*** .16 < .001
X (age) − .01*** .003 < .001
W1 (EA vs. CA, HKC) .15 .19 .43
W2 (HKC vs. EA, CA) − .27 .17 .11
X × W1 .006 .004 .12
X × W2 .001 .003 .73
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EA European American, CA Chinese American, HKC Hong Kong Chinese, Coeff. Regression coefficient, SE standard error

***p < .001

Serial multiple mediation of future time perspective and perceived importance

The moderated serial multiple mediator model was tested using the SPSS PROCESS Model 92, which allowed an investigation of the direct and indirect effects of age on intellectual curiosity in a casual sequence. It assumed that age has 4 potential ways to influence intellectual curiosity—a direct effect, an indirect effect through future time perspective (FTP), an indirect effect through importance of curiosity, and an indirect effect first through FTP and then through importance of curiosity. At the same time, the moderating role of culture on each pathway was also analyzed with the same dummy codes as in the linear regression analysis.

Taking all the cultural groups together, the individual paths of the key variables in the expected mediation model were all significant (see Table 5): age-FTP (β = −.04, SE = .003, p < .001), FTP importance of curiosity (β = .41, SE = .07, p < .001), importance of curiosity-intellectual curiosity (β = .13, SE = .04, p < .001). The conditional direct and indirect effects are summarized in Table 6. Among European Americans, the association between age and intellectual curiosity was partially mediated by future time perspective and importance of curiosity. Both Chinese Americans and Hong Kong Chinese participants, however, showed a full mediation of future time perspective and importance of curiosity in the relationship between age and intellectual curiosity. Moreover, in contrast to the direct effect and the indirect effects through one mediator only, the indirect effect through both the future time perspective and importance of curiosity was significant across all three cultural groups, and the differences between these groups’ conditional indirect effects were not significant. This finding indicated that the model with two mediators was the most consistent model across different cultural contexts. Details and brief discussion of the culture moderations of specific pathways in this model are available in the Supplementary Material. Although this is a cross-sectional and correlational study, the model suggests that intellectual curiosity may decline with age because individuals perceive intellectual curiosity as less important as their future time perspective becomes more limited with age, and this pattern appeared to be consistent across the three different cultural groups examined.

Table 5.

Regression coefficients, SE, and model summary information for the moderated serial multiple mediator model with two mediators (PROCESS Model 92) on age and intellectual curiosity

Antecedent Consequent
M1 (FTP) M2 (Importance of curiosity) Y (Intellectual curiosity)
Coeff. SE p Coeff. SE p Coeff. SE p
(Intercept) 6.48*** .21 < .001 2.13*** .49 < .001 2.28*** .32 < .001
X (age) − .04*** .004 < .001 .005 .005 .32 − .004 .003 .16
M1 (FTP) – – – .42*** .07 < .001 .14** .04 < .01
M2 (importance of curiosity) – – – – – – .13*** .04 < .001
W1 (EA vs. CA, HKC) .27 .25 .28 1.25† .66 .06 .63 .44 .16
W2 (HKC vs. EA, CA) − .85*** .22 < .001 .82 .65 .21 − .43 .43 .32
X × W1 − .0004 .005 .94 − .001 .01 .83 − .003 .004 .49
X × W2 .02*** .004 < .001 − .02** .01 < .01 .001 .004 .75
M1 × W1 – – – − .19* .09 .04 .21*** .06 < .001
M1 × W2 – – – − .04 .11 .72 − .01 .07 .88
M2 × W1 – – – – – – .17** .06 < .01
M2 × W2 – – – – – – .06* .05 .28
R2 = .32 F(8, 814) = 48.15, p = < .001 R2 = .18 F(11, 811) = 16.48, p = < .001 R2 = .29 F(14, 808) = 23.78, p = < .001
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X Independent variable (participants’ age); M1 Mediator 1 (FTP Future time perspective), M2 Mediator 2 (Importance of curiosity), W1: Moderator 1 (Comparing European American against other groups), W2 Moderator 2 (Comparing Hong Kong Chinese against other groups), EA European American, CA Chinese American, HKC Hong Kong Chinese, Coeff. regression coefficient, SE standard error

†p < .09; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001

Table 6.

The conditional direct and indirect effects for the moderated serial multiple mediator model with two mediators (PROCESS Model 92) on age and intellectual curiosity

W
(Culture)		 Indirect effect
(Age → FTP → Importance → Curiosity)		 Indirect effect
(Age → FTP → Curiosity)		 Indirect effect
(Age → Importance → Curiosity)		 Direct effect
(Age → Curiosity)
Effect 95% Bootstrap CI Effect 95% Bootstrap CI Effect 95% Bootstrap CI Effect SE p
European American − .003* − .005 to − .001 .003 − .001 to .007 .002 − .001 to .005 − .007* .003 .01
Asian American − .002* − .004 to − .001 − .006* − .009 to − .002 .001 − .001 to .002 − .004 .003 .16
Hong Kong Chinese − .002* − .003 to − .001 − .003 − .006 to .0001 − .002* − .004 to − .001 − .003 .002 .17
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FTP Future time perspective, CI confidence interval, SE standard error

*p < .05 or CI does not covered zero

Discussion

This study aimed to better understand the underlying mechanism of age-related decline in intellectual curiosity among European Americans, Chinese Americans, and Hong Kong Chinese. The results of this study confirmed the hypotheses that (1) intellectual curiosity showed a significant negative association with age and (2) the negative association was mediated by a more limited future time perspective and reduced importance of curiosity. Finally, (3) this serial multiple mediation was significant across the three cultural groups.

These findings suggest a more comprehensive picture of the association between age and intellectual curiosity: intellectual curiosity may decline with age because, as individuals get older, future time is perceived as more limited. This more limited future time perspective reduces the importance of intellectual curiosity for older adults and thus reduces the tendency to invest time and resources to form or resolve intellectual curiosity. Moreover, this mechanism is generally generalizable across European Americans, Chinese Americans, and Hong Kong Chinese.

These findings are consistent with those from previous studies on how aging is associated with motivational changes that lead to changes in behavior. As suggested by socioemotional selectivity theory, older adults tend to prioritize emotionally meaningful goals over instrumental or knowledge-related goals (e.g., Lang and Carstensen 2002). In other words, motivation for knowledge may decline across adulthood. A study by Kooij and Zacher (2016) indeed found that older workers who perceived less remaining time in their company showed lower learning goal orientation and less positive learning attitudes. In addition, preference for variety seems to decline with age. Prior studies have demonstrated that, with age, adults appear to value increased number of choices less (Mikels et al. 2009). They do not like options as much and tend to make choices with less variability (Novak and Mather 2007). Furthermore, Price and Murray (2012) have demonstrated that when being allowed to freely choose to learn random word pairs with different levels of complexity, older adults tended to focus on simpler or more familiar items, relative to younger adults. Taken together, the present findings on the mediating roles of future time perspective and perceived importance of curiosity extended the prior literature on the influence of future time perspective on the aging process. Future time perspective accounts for not just age differences in motivation (e.g., goals and attitudes), but also age differences in personality traits (i.e., intellectual curiosity). In addition, these mediation patterns were found in all the three cultural groups examined, confirming the cross-cultural robustness of the findings.

The above findings should be evaluated with some limitations in mind. First, the present study focused on intellectual curiosity solely. Yet, as discussed at the beginning of the introduction, there are many different types of curiosity in the literature (Grossnickle 2016). This opens up the possibility that different types of curiosity may “age” differently. Future studies may try to examine and compare the aging process of different types of curiosity. Moreover, the inter-item reliability of intellectual curiosity and importance of curiosity measures were both slightly lower than the standard cutoff of .7. We acknowledge that the lower reliability may attenuate or amplify the observed associations, and future studies may consider using alternative measurements. In addition, this study is correlational. Future studies may consider using an experimental design to enhance curiosity through future time manipulations, and tested whether such process was indeed driven by altering perceived importance of curiosity.

Granted, age differences in intellectual curiosity have been found consistently in the previous studies (e.g., Dellenbach and Zimprich 2008). Yet, relatively little attention has been paid to their underlying mechanisms. The present study advances the literature by applying socioemotional selectivity theory to explain age-related differences in intellectual curiosity. It offers a new perspective to view age-related changes of curiosity in terms of future time perspective. Older adults may become less intellectually curious than their young counterparts because curiosity is no longer a priority for them given their relatively limited time perspective. Future studies should test this possibility longitudinally in order to better understand learning motivation across adulthood.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 20 kb) (20.2KB, docx)

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund #14613015 and a Direct Grant to Helene Fung and the National Institute of Aging Grant R03 AG023302 and National Institute of Mental Health Grant R01MH068879 awarded to Jeanne L. Tsai.

Footnotes

Responsible editor: Matthias Kliegel.

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