Covert Social Curiosity, Idle Curiosity, and Fear of Missing Out: Evidence for a Unified Latent Construct

Abstract

Curiosity drives us to seek new information. Few studies have challenged the view that it is intrinsically a positive trait. We developed a new scale measuring idle curiosity, i.e. the Social Excessive & Excessive Knowledge-hunting (SEEK) scale. The scale was developed within the Item Response Theory paradigm using two participant samples (N₁ = 159, N₂ = 338) and was then correlated with other constructs for validation purposes (i.e., fear of missing out and co-vert curiosity). The SEEK scale demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties but showed extraordinarily strong correlations with fear of missing out (FoMOs) and covert social curiosity (5DCR). Deeper analyses revealed that all three traits had intercorrelations of r = .59-.69, and items from the three scales loaded onto virtually one factor. Moreover, questionnaires used as validation criteria showed nearly identical correlational patterns for all three traits. We propose the existence of a latent meta-trait underlying these three constructs. Since frameworks of cu-riosity studies and fear of missing out on studies were previously disparate and even antitheti-cal, we discuss the implications of our findings for previous and future research in these areas.