Curiosity is taking an interest in all ongoing experiences.  It involves actively recognising and pursuing challenging opportunities and seeking out new knowledge. Curiosity can be broken down into interest, novelty seeking, and openness.

This strength drives individuals to make discoveries and explore the boundaries of human knowledge.

How to demonstrate this Character Strength:

Movies: October Sky (1999), Amelie (2001-French), Curious George (2006)

Music: Upside Down (Jack Johnson), People Watching (Jack Johnson)

Suggested strategies that correlate with this strength:

  1. Look for jobs in which you are charged with acquiring new information daily, such as journalism, research, teaching etc.
  2. Expand your knowledge in an area of interest through books, journals, magazines, TV, radio or the internet for half an hour 3 x times a week.
  3. Attend a function or lecture. Colloquium of a culture that differs from yours.
  4. Find someone who shares your area of interest and learn how he/ she increases his / her expertise.
  5. Eat food from a different culture, explore its context and become aware of your thoughts.
  6. Connect with a person of a different culture and spend at least an hour with that person 2 x times per month to learn about their culture.
  7. Make a list of unknowns about your favourite topic.
  8. Try things that challenge your existing knowledge and skills
  9. Visit at least one new tow, state of country yearly.
  10. Identify factors that might have diminished your curiosity in an area and search for three new ways to rejuvenate it.
  11. Get engaged in more open-ended learning experiences (i.e. making ice cream to understand physics and chemistry or taking a yoga class to understand different muscle groups)
  12. Explore processes of nature, for at least one hour weekly, by being in the woods, park, stream, beach, garden, yard, etc.

By monitoring the above, you can catch when there is an incongruence in this personal strength. An incongruence will compromise you and cause inner conflict, so the above will help you keep on the right track.

 

References:

Niemiec, R. M, 2017, Character Strengths Interventions, Hogrefe, Boston

Tayyab, R., Anjum, A., 2005, 340 Ways to Use VIA Character Strengths, University of Pennsylvania