What Loewenstein's 1994 curiosity theory says about getting out of bed

Curiosity is the feeling of missing a particular piece of information you already know exists. George Loewenstein proposed this in 1994, in a review in Psychological Bulletin (116(1), 75-98), and its most useful consequence for mornings is blunt: you cannot be curious about something you know nothing about.

That is the part most “be curious” advice skips. Loewenstein’s account says curiosity needs a small, specific hole in what you know, and it needs you to be looking at the hole.

What the theory says

The abstract describes curiosity as “a form of cognitively induced deprivation that arises from the perception of a gap in knowledge or understanding.” The review’s argument is that older theories failed to explain why people voluntarily seek out curiosity and what situations trigger it.

His explanation rests on attention. He illustrates it with state capitals: someone who knows 3 of the 50 will frame it as “I know 3,” while someone who knows 47 is more likely to frame it as “I don’t know 3.” That is a thought experiment, not a finding. The prediction that follows is that curiosity should rise with knowledge, because more knowledge makes you notice what is missing, and that it tends to rise gradually as you approach completing the set.

The pleasure comes at the end. Loewenstein argues curiosity itself is aversive, and that people accept it because resolving it feels good, the way people fast before a meal.

What was tested, and what was not

The review reports several studies by Loewenstein and colleagues (1992), which I read only as summarised in the 1994 paper:

• People who could click squares to reveal pictures hidden behind a grid explored more when the squares were pieces of one animal (a puzzle to solve) than when each square showed a different animal.
• People were more curious about words they felt were on the tip of the tongue than words they did not.
• Guessing which states were most southern, northern and western, and then being told “right” or “wrong,” raised curiosity about the easternmost state (the answer is Alaska). Neither guessing alone nor feedback alone had a significant effect in that first experiment.

Jones (1979), also cited, found a correlation of .51 between self-rated knowledge of an item and curiosity about it.

Other predictions were explicitly untested when he wrote. The review lists as yet-to-be-tested the idea that people are more curious about something they expect to know in the future, and that curiosity should rise with another person’s possession of information. He also says the theory does not explain why people hold the interests they hold, and that people often seek information without curiosity at all. I did not read any later work for this post, so I cannot say how those predictions fared.

Where the theory is thin for mornings

Three limits. Curiosity, in his account, is transient: it ends when attention moves on. It tends to disappoint once satisfied. And people avoid curiosity-inducing situations when the chance of getting the answer is slim or the delay is long. A question with no answer waiting tomorrow should not pull anyone out of bed.

Nothing in the review tests morning behavior. Applying it to alarms is my inference.

Three things to do tonight

1. Stop the page early. Use something where you already know a lot: a book, a project, a recipe you are halfway through. A little knowledge is what makes the missing piece visible. Leave tomorrow’s first page open, or stop mid-chapter.
2. Guess, then hold the feedback. The combination that raised curiosity in the 1992 experiment was guessing plus accuracy feedback. Write your guess tonight (what the test result will be, who is on the call, how the bug is caused) and make the check something you can only do after you are up.
3. Make it answerable by 7 a.m. The theory predicts you will not invest in a question you cannot resolve soon. Pick one with a specific place and a short delay.

Curiosity addresses the pull. It does not address the moment when you are warm and the pull is losing. Attaching a cost to staying in bed is a separate lever, and Loewenstein’s own 1996 work on hot and cold states is the reason for it: the evening version of you chooses the plan, and the morning version votes on it. DontSnooze is built for that second part; miss the video proof that you are up and a photo from your camera roll goes to your friends.

Curiosity can also turn the other way

The same theory has a darker twin. People sometimes avoid information they expect to hurt, which is the ostrich effect, a finding Loewenstein later co-authored. If tomorrow’s open question is an unopened inbox, the pull may run in reverse. A question you expect to enjoy answering, attached to a time through an if-then plan, is the version the theory supports.

For a ritual to attach the curiosity to, a five-item gratitude list is the best-tested small one.