The Curiosity Conflict: The Struggle to Shift from Exploration to Exploitation

"Curiosity can empower you or impede you. Being curious and focused is a powerful combination. I define this combination as unleashing your curiosity within the domain of a particular task: asking questions about how things work, exploring different lines of attack for solving the problem, reading ideas from outside domains while always l

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Curiosity and possibility are typically subject to a novelty bias. People commonly conceptualize possibility as a harbinger of the new. What is old is already actualized; what is new is merely possible. Similarly, curiosity is thought, among scholars and lay people alike, to be piqued by and to produce the new. Repeatedly, across multiple fields an

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People tend to gravitate to different sides of the explore/exploit spectrum. If you are high on openness, like I am, exploring comes easy. But it is harder to make a commitment and exploit what you’ve learned about yourself and the world. Other people are more committed, but risk being too conventional in their choices. They miss better avenues for... See more