title: Curiosity about people: the development of a social curiosity measure in adults.
abstract: Curiosity refers to the desire for acquiring new information. The aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire to assess social curiosity, that is, interest in how other people think, feel, and behave. The questionnaire was administered to 312 participants. Factor analyses of the 10-item Social Curiosity Scale (SCS) yielded 2 factors: General Social Curiosity and Covert Social Curiosity. Evidence of convergent validity was provided by moderately high correlations of the SCS with other measures of curiosity and self-perceived curiosity, whereas discriminant validity was demonstrated by low correlations of the SCS with other personality traits, such as neuroticism and agreeableness. Of interest, social interaction anxiety was observed to facilitate covert social curiosity while inhibiting general social curiosity.
authors.affiliation: Jacobs Center for Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development, International University Bremen, Bremen, Germany. b.renner@iu-bremen.de
authors.forename: Britta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Renner
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012649:Self Concept; D012737:Sex Factors; D012919:Social Behavior; D012951:Socialization