Effects of Trait Curiosities on the Appraisals of Picture Stimuli: Diversive Curiosity and Specific Curiosity

Abstract

Affective designs need to take into account the existence of considerable individual differences in people's emotions. In this study, individual differences in appraisal structure of knowledge emotions were addressed. Participants viewed puzzling and intriguing pictures and rated their unintelligibility and consequential feelings of interest and confusion. Rather large individual differences in the relations between unintelligibility appraisals and ensuing knowledge emotions of interest and confusion were found. These individual differences of appraisals were shown to be related to individual differences in trait curiosities by multi-level analysis. On average people with high trait diversive curiosity have tendency to feel more interest when they found pictures more unintelligible. By contrast people with high trait specific curiosity have tendency to feel more confusion when they found pictures more unintelligible.