Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
Nat Commun. 2022 Apr 28;13(1):2310. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30011-5.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of understanding and managing information seeking behavior. Information-seeking in humans is often viewed as irrational rather than utility maximizing. Here, we hypothesized that this apparent disconnect between utility and information-seeking is due to a latent third variable, motivation. We quantified information-seeking, learning, and COVID-19-related concern (which we used as a proxy for motivation regarding COVID-19 and the changes in circumstance it caused) in a US-based sample (n = 5376) during spring 2020. We found that self-reported levels of COVID-19 concern were associated with directed seeking of COVID-19-related content and better memory for such information. Interestingly, this specific motivational state was also associated with a general enhancement of information-seeking for content unrelated to COVID-19. These effects were associated with commensurate changes to utility expectations and were dissociable from the influence of non-specific anxiety. Thus, motivation both directs and energizes epistemic behavior, linking together utility and curiosity.
新冠疫情凸显了理解和管理信息寻求行为的重要性。人类的信息寻求通常被视为非理性的，而不是效用最大化的。在这里，我们假设这种效用和信息寻求之间明显的脱节是由于一个潜在的第三个变量，即动机。我们在 2020 年春季对一个基于美国的样本（n=5376）进行了信息寻求、学习和与新冠病毒相关的关注（我们将其用作对新冠病毒以及它所导致的环境变化的关注的代理）的量化。我们发现，自我报告的新冠病毒担忧程度与对新冠病毒相关内容的定向搜索以及对这些信息的更好记忆有关。有趣的是，这种特定的动机状态也与对与新冠病毒无关的内容的信息寻求的普遍增强有关。这些效应与效用期望的相应变化有关，并且与非特定焦虑的影响是可分离的。因此，动机既指导又激发了认识行为，将效用和好奇心联系在一起。
