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UNCERTAINTY AND EPISTEMIC CURIOSITY
Author(s) -
BERLYNE D. E.
Publication year - 1962
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1962.tb00811.x
Subject(s) - curiosity , psychology , epistemology , degree (music) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , philosophy , physics , acoustics
Two experiments were concerned with the effects of uncertainty on epistemic curiosity. Quotations, each coupled with the names of possible authors and with a distribution of fictitious experts' guesses regarding the true author, formed the experimental material. The role of uncertainty was predicted from a theory according to which epistemic curiosity will increase with degree of conceptual conflict. The two experiments showed reported curiosity to increase with two determinants of uncertainty and degree of conflict, namely (1) number of alternative responses and (2) evenness of distribution of response‐strength, respectively. They also revealed ways in which response uncertainties, dependent on distributions of subjects' guesses, differ from the corresponding stimulus uncertainties.