The Curiosity Curse: Why Do We Stop Asking Why?

Would you like more success in your career and a longer, healthier life? 

It sounds like the beginning of a 3 a.m. infomercial that ends with an offer to sell you some magic potion for “three easy payments of $19.99!” 

But there’s another way to enrich your life, and it won’t cost you anything: 

Nurture your curiosity. 

An overwhelming body of research affirms that curiosity—the practice of constantly asking why—can enhance our careers, our health, and our happiness. 

We are born curious and creative. One study found the average four-year old asks their parent some 300 questions a day. As the mother of two immensely curious girls, I bet that estimate is on the low side. 

But then, inevitably, we start to lose our capacity and our desire to ask why. 

How Kids Beat Grownups on NASA’s Creativity Test 

In 1968, a professor named George Land decided to administer a creativity test to a group of five-year-old children. It was actually the same test he’d developed for NASA—to help them find curious engineers and scientists who could creatively solve tough problems.  

An unbelievable 98 percent of the five-year-olds scored as “highly creative” on Land’s test. But guess what happened when Land gave the same test to a group of ten-year-olds? Only 30 percent scored as highly creative. And by the time Land got to 15-year-olds, the number had dropped to 12 percent.  

When Land later surveyed 280,000 adults over the age of 25, just two percent—or about 5,000 people—scored “highly creative.” 

It’s as if we get into school and decide: The more things I know, the fewer things I need to learn. 

We should fight that impulse at every turn. We should never stop asking why.  

At Facebook, we talk frequently about how we need to be a learning organization that never graduates—and the same is true in our personal lives.  

During recent months, I’ve been thinking and writing about the elements of a more enlightened leadership style that I think companies and employees desperately need. Of these elements, I believe curiosity is one of the most essential.  

Thoughts on Curiosity From Instagram’s Adam Mosseri 

Last week, I had a chance to speak to one of the most creative people I know, Adam Mosseri, who heads up Instagram. I wanted to learn more about how he instills and cultivates curiosity not only in his work team, but in his three sons, aged 5, 3 and 1. 

Guess what? He basically has the same strategy for empowering his kids to be curious as he does an Instagram product designer. For his kids, he makes sure “no subjects are off limits” and that there’s no stigma around discussion of any topic or about asking questions. And at Instagram, he says he is trying to build a culture that “not only accepts but even celebrates” dissent and different types of view. Questions are encouraged, welcomed and rewarded. 

Whether you’re the head of a company or a household, curiosity can only flourish when a leader sets the right tone. It requires a leader not just saying “there are no stupid questions,” but really believing in and embracing that idea. It requires a leader to show their own vulnerability and be the first to ask the question that perhaps others are hesitant to ask. 

It requires understanding that some people are naturally eager to share their opinions while others are not. Adam says it is his job to figure out what’s blocking people from participating and to create the space where everyone feels comfortable offering their ideas.  

When a leader embraces and encourages curiosity, they aren’t just promoting something that is proven to make the people they care about happier and healthier. They are promoting the success of whatever effort they are trying to lead. 

Adam said, “tons of organizations and tons of leaders fail because they become complacent and forget to look around corners. They assume they understand more than they do and the world changes on them and they get caught out of position.” 

The antidote for this complacency is curiosity.  

When Adam reflected on the importance of surrounding yourself with really smart people who are comfortable asserting their own point of view and challenging you, it reminded me of something Mark Zuckerberg said when he first hired me. 

Mark said, “you’ll be responsible for the revenue but your real responsibility is actually who you hire and you need to hire people who are better than you.” I’d never heard that before in an interview. It is just not an easy or intuitive idea for a leader to embrace. 

It wasn’t until later in my career that I really understood and internalized that a leader isn’t supposed to have all the answers. A leader has to make decisions. And they are much more likely to be good decisions if they are based on the answers from a wildly curious and creative group of people. 

If you want to watch the video of my full conversation with Adam Mosseri—in which we talk curiosity as well as his tips on how to create great content on the Instagram platform—you can do so here.