An international team of psychologists, including experts from UCLA, has found that specific forms of curiosity increase with age and may help older adults prevent Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The study highlights the importance of staying curious to ensure successful aging.
What if the key to successful aging lies in maintaining a sense of curiosity? According to recent research by an international team of psychologists, including several from UCLA, the answer is a resounding yes. Their study, published in PLOS One, reveals that certain forms of curiosity can increase well into old age and may even help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.
“The psychology literature shows that oftentimes what’s known as trait curiosity, or a person’s general level of curiosity, tends to decline with age,” senior author Alan Castel, a UCLA psychologist, said in a news release. “But we thought that was a little bit strange and went against some of the things we saw in some of the older adult participants in our experiments, who would often be very engaged and interested in learning about memory, specifically, but even other forms of trivia.”
The researchers divided curiosity into two types: trait curiosity, which is a person’s general level of inquisitiveness, and state curiosity, a momentary sense of curiosity about specific topics. They speculated that while trait curiosity declines with age, state curiosity could remain steady or even increase.
To explore this hypothesis, the researchers conducted a study involving participants aged 20 to 84, who completed an online questionnaire assessing their curiosity levels. To measure trait curiosity, participants answered general questions about their levels of interest in various subjects. For state curiosity, participants guessed answers to challenging trivia questions and rated their interest in learning the correct answers.
The results showed that while trait curiosity declines over the adult lifespan, state curiosity increases sharply after middle age and continues to rise into old age. This finding mirrors research showing a dip in happiness during midlife and suggests that older adults become increasingly selective about what they choose to learn.
“Our findings fit with some of my work on selectivity theory, which is that as we get older, we don’t want to stop learning, we’re just more selective about what we want to learn,” added Castel. “You see this in the context of lifelong learning: A lot of older adults will go back to take classes or pick up hobbies or engage in bird watching.”
This research offers valuable insights into aging, indicating that sustaining curiosity is crucial for mental sharpness. Castel cited his own research showing that people tend to forget information that doesn’t engage their curiosity, indicating that a focused, selective curiosity might help older adults retain important information while discarding less relevant details.
“As we get older, maybe we want to be focused on the things that are important, and we forget the things that are less relevant,” Castel added. “Anecdotally, a lot of older adults I speak to say that it’s important to stay curious.”
The study posits that maintaining state curiosity can lead to more successful aging, suggesting that the curiosity to learn and engage in specific interests can stave off cognitive decline and keep the mind sharp.
As Castel summed it up, “I think it shows that this level of curiosity, if maintained, can really keep us sharp as we age.”
With support from institutions like the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging, the Leverhulme Trust and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, this research underscores the significant role curiosity could play in aging successfully.