Sparking Curiosity for Better Learning and Better Lives

What if curiosity is the key to better public health communication?

This is a question that has guided upcoming graduate Xinyi Wang through her doctoral research at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. In an information era flooded with noise, Wang believes that fostering curiosity may be one of the most powerful, and underused, tools we have to help people learn and recall health information — because if you’re curious about something, you’re likely to remember it.

As a member of Annenberg’s Addiction, Health, & Adolescence (AHA!) Lab as well as the Communication Neuroscience Lab, Wang explores both the environmental and biological factors that underpin curiosity as well as ways that health communicators could use curiosity to point people toward accurate health information.

One topic she’s explored in depth is efforts to encourage smokers to quit smoking. Curiosity, she’s found, can help smokers learn and recall facts about smoking, even when those facts point out that smoking is bad for you.

“In one study, my co-authors and I quizzed participants on general and smoking-related trivia and found that trivia that sparked people’s curiosity was associated with better recall of the answers a week later, whether the trivia was smoking-related or not,” she says. “My dissertation study scaled up from this previous work and presented messages about nicotine in a curiosity-eliciting way, by putting information in the form of a question — ‘What substance in tobacco cigarettes makes them more addictive?’ — for example. While we didn’t test people’s memory in the longer term, we found that curiosity-eliciting nicotine knowledge was more effective in helping people form accurate beliefs about nicotine than standard messages.”

We caught up with Wang as she reflected on her research, her time at Annenberg, and what comes next.

What is your dissertation about?

My dissertation is about understanding curiosity in the world of communication, how we may change it, and how it is reflected in the brain.

What led you to pursue a Ph.D., and why did you choose Annenberg?

I participated in a lot of research studies and then became a research assistant during my undergraduate and master’s studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. As an undergraduate research assistant, I was facilitating studies in media psychology, looking at people’s media switching experiences and how that has an impact on their wellbeing, which made me realize I am very passionate about understanding the human experience related to media and communication. During my M.A. studies, I was a research assistant for the Center for Health Enhancement Systems Studies (CHESS) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where I was able to work on interventions that use media and mobile applications to improve people’s quality of life. These previous experiences really shaped my passion for leveraging the benefits of communication to promote health behavior and improve people’s well-being.

I chose Annenberg because of the amazing research portfolio here and the significant research impact people at Annenberg are making on the world. I felt very inspired by the work taking place at Annenberg, particularly in the realm of communication science and health communication.

What sparked your interest in curiosity?

I was looking for research that talks about curiosity in a communication context and theories, and I surprisingly found little. This gap in research sparked my interest in bridging curiosity to communication and understanding what role it plays in various communication processes.

What is one finding from your research that really surprised you?

One particularly surprising finding was that curiosity-eliciting health messages were more effective in reducing people’s false beliefs than messages with no curiosity elements. This insight opens up new possibilities for developing health message strategies that leverage curiosity, which I am very excited to explore in future research.

How did your dissertation topic evolve over time?

My dissertation idea started with my observations of how we interact with new information in today’s information-saturated environment. Curiosity is an essential experience in our day-to-day knowledge consumption and media experience, yet little is known about how and why. I was drawn to explore curiosity within the context of communication because the field provides a vital framework for understanding how people actively seek out and engage with new information online and offline. From there, I developed my ideas around understanding the mechanisms that curiosity could be influenced in communication processes and how we can leverage the benefit of curiosity, in that it facilitates memory, to health communication messages to improve learning.

Were there any specific mentors, peers, or classes that fundamentally shaped your time at Annenberg?

My advisor, Dr. David Lydon-Staley, along with my committee members Dr. Emily Falk and Dr. Andy Tan, have profoundly influenced my journey at Annenberg. I’ve had the opportunity to take courses and collaborate closely with each of them. David’s class and work on time inspired me to pursue research focusing on the within-person fluctuations space, while Emily’s work on value and social influence, and Andy’s focus on health equity, have all been instrumental in shaping the direction of my research interests. I also want to give a special shout-out to my peers in the AHA! lab, Dr. Darin Johnson from the Communication Neuroscience Lab, and my cohort friends Adetobi Moses and Chloe Ahn. They have been a group of amazing scholars and colleagues who have offered me tremendous support throughout my time at Annenberg.

What’s next for you after graduation?

I am very excited to stay at Annenberg for a little longer as a postdoctoral fellow for Professor Andy Tan, where I will get to work on assessing the impact of nicotine and tobacco messages for adults and youths.