从学生到职场人：科学家证实“好奇心红利”正重塑人生赛道

2025/6/24 2:20:07

你是否想过，为什么总有人对世界保持旺盛的探索欲？科学揭示了...

你是否想过，为什么总有人对世界保持旺盛的探索欲？科学揭示了一个颠覆认知的真相：好奇心不仅是智慧的火花，更是大脑的“超级营养剂”。最新研究表明，当好奇心被激发时，大脑会释放多巴胺，使新知识记忆留存率提升30%，甚至能重塑神经连接。从职场到校园，从决策力到抗压力，好奇心强的人工作效率高出27%，职业倦怠风险降低40%。更令人振奋的是，这种“认知超能力”并非天赋，通过简单干预就能培养。

A wealth of scientific research shows that allowing your curiosity to be piqued in this way can be incredibly good for your mind.大量的科学研究表明，用这种方式激发你的好奇心对你的大脑非常有益。Research shows that not knowing the answer to an intriguing puzzle can, for example, increase your creativity on subsequent tasks, as well as priming your brain for learning.研究显示，不知道一个有趣谜题的答案，这可以，比如增加你在后续任务中的创造力，并为你的大脑学习做好准备。Curiosity in the workplace, meanwhile, increases engagement and enjoyment of your job and reduces your risk of burnout.与此同时，工作中的好奇心会增加你对工作的投入和乐趣，降低你的倦怠风险。It is little wonder, then, that scientists have now been looking for ways to cultivate more curiosity in our lives – and even simple interventions could reap enormous benefits.因此，科学家们一直在寻找在生活中培养我们更多好奇心的方法也就不足为奇了——即使是简单的干预也能获得巨大的益处。Memory boosts记忆力提升Given that the dictionary definition of curiosity is "the desire to know something", it may be of little surprise that much research has concerned its benefits for education.考虑到词典对好奇心的定义为“想要知道一些东西的欲望”，很多关注好奇心对教育益处的研究就不足为奇了。Using questionnaires that ask people how much they desire new information and consider novel problems, various studies have shown that people"s curiosity can predict their academic success, independently of IQ.通过问卷调查，探究人们对新信息的渴望程度和对新问题的考虑程度，各式研究表明，人们的好奇心可以预见他们的学业成功，而与智商无关。The most recent research suggests that the benefits for learning may arise from changes at a neurological level.最近的研究表明，对学习的益处可能来自神经层面的变化。When we feel curious about a subject, the facts that we are studying become more deeply encoded, and more accessible when they are later needed.当我们对一门感到好奇时，我们就会更深入地对正在学习的事实进行编码，并且在以后需要时更容易获取到它们。The effects of curiosity on later recall were striking.好奇心对之后回想的影响是惊人的。When the participants were highly curious about a fact, they were 30% more likely to recall it.当参与者对一件事非常好奇时，他们回忆起这件事的可能性要高出30%。And this seemed to correspond to heightened activity in areas of the midbrain that release the neurotransmitter dopamine.这似乎与中脑释放神经递质多巴胺区域的活动增强相对应。Dopamine is normally associated with reward, but animal studies suggest that it can also enhance the formation of new neural connections.多巴胺通常与奖励有关，但动物研究表明，它也可以促进新神经连接的形成。It looked as if the feeling of curiosity was helping prepare the brain to absorb the new and important information, and this then resulted in a more stable memory.看起来，好奇心似乎有助于大脑准备吸收新的重要信息，从而形成更稳定的记忆。Curiosity can also increase our patience.好奇心也可以增加我们的耐心。A recent, currently unpublished, study by Abigail Hsiung, a PhD student at Duke University in North Carolina, showed that heightened curiosity meant that people were more willing to wait to find out the solution to a puzzle.北卡罗来纳杜克大学的博士生阿比盖尔·熊(Abigail Hsiung)最近一项尚未发表的研究表明，好奇心的增强意味着人们更愿意等待找到谜题的答案。Less curious people, in contrast, were more impatient to get through the task quickly, and so they asked to jump straight to the answers.相比之下，不那么好奇的人更没有耐心，希望快速完成任务，所以他们要求直接跳到答案。"High curiosity meant that people wanted to have that moment of realisation and discovery on their own," says Hsiung. In education, greater patience and prolonged engagement are likely to lead to extended research,熊说：“高度的好奇心意味着人们渴望由自己实现和发现的那一刻。”在教育领域，更大的耐心和更长时间的参与可能会促成更广泛的研究，deeper learning and understanding, particularly for complex topics – which may also help to explain why curiosity is such a strong predictor of academic success.更深入的学习和理解，尤其是对于复杂的话题——这也可能有助于解释为什么好奇心是学术成功的强大预测因素。Engagement and wellbeing参与度和幸福感The benefits of curiosity do not end here.好奇心的好处还不止于此。In his recent book The Art of Insubordination, Todd Kashdan, a professor of psychology at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, US, points out that greater curiosity can also make people more open to hearing others" opinions,美国弗吉尼亚州费尔法克斯乔治梅森大学的心理学教授托德·卡什丹(Todd Kashdan)在他的新书《不服从的艺术》中指出，更强的好奇心也会使人们更愿意听取别人的意见，even if they differ from their own. That"s essential if we want to have productive disagreements and avoid issues like confirmation bias and groupthink.即使他们与自己的意见不同。如果我们想要产生富有成效的分歧，并避免确认偏见和群体思维等问题，这是必不可少的。Kashdan"s own research has demonstrated that curiosity brings comprehensive benefits to the workplace. The study included more than 800 participants from the USA and Germany from a range of industries,卡什丹自己的研究表明，好奇心会给工作带来全面的益处。这项研究包括来自美国和德国不同行业的800多名参与者，who rated a series of statements about their experiences of curiosity in their day-to-day lives, such as:他们对日常生活中的好奇经历进行了一系列陈述，例如：I get excited thinking about experimenting with different ideas.一想到尝试不同的想法，我就感到兴奋。I do not shy away from the unknown or unfamiliar even if it seems scary.我不回避未知或陌生的事物，即使它看起来很可怕。The participants also completed questionnaires about their job satisfaction and engagement, their social relationships with their colleagues, their feelings of burnout and their use of innovation at work.参与者还完成了有关工作满意度和敬业度、与同事的社会关系、职业倦怠感以及在工作中运用创新的问卷调查。In each of these measures, the more curious participants tended to report better experiences, compared with the less curious participants.在每一项测量中，与不那么好奇的参与者相比，更好奇的参与者往往倾向于报告更好的体验。Cultivating curiosity培养好奇心According to Kashdan, many organisations could encourage greater curiosity in the workforce with a few changes to their corporate culture.卡什丹认为，许多企业组织可以通过改变企业文化来激发员工的好奇心。Managers might consider giving their employees a little more independence, for example, with various studies showing that a sense of autonomy increases curiosity.比如，经理们可能会考虑给予员工更多的独立性，各种研究表明，自主权会增加好奇心。Even if there are only a limited number of options available, a project is more likely to stimulate someone"s interest if they have selected it voluntarily, rather than having the choice imposed on them by someone else.即使只有有限的选择，如果一个项目是自愿选择的，那么它更有可能激发某人的兴趣，而不是别人强加给他的选择。Where relevant, employers might also encourage workers to look beyond the narrow confines of their primary expertise.在相关的情况下，雇主可能还会鼓励员工超越他们主要专业知识的狭窄范围。"We really need to get rid of this notion of "staying in your lane"," suggests Kashdan.卡什丹建议：“我们真的需要摆脱‘守在自己的车道上’的观念。”The increased interest in the new domain could then spill over into their own area, he says, energising their thinking and allowing them to spot new connections and lines of enquiry.他表示，对新领域兴趣的增加可能会影响到他们自己的领域，激发他们的思维，让他们发现新的联系和探索方向。On an individual level, there is also some evidence that you can actively train your curiosity.从个人层面上，也有一些证据表明，你可以积极地训练自己的好奇心。The first step is to make it personally relevant; research by Rachit Dubey, a cognitive scientist at Princeton University, has shown that reminding people of the usefulness of the new knowledge can boost their curiosity when it"s lagging.第一步是让它与个人相关；普林斯顿大学认知科学家拉希特·杜贝(Rachit Dubey)的研究表明，提醒人们新知识的有用性可以在新知识滞后时增强他们的好奇心。So, try to keep your ultimate goals in your focus, if feelings of frustration or confusion have caused you to forget why you were interested in the first place.所以，如果挫败感或困惑感让你忘记了最初为什么会感到兴趣，那可以试着把你的最终目标放在你的焦点上。For similar reasons, you might compile a list of questions that you would like to answer in the days or weeks ahead.出于类似的原因，你可以编制一个问题列表，列出想要在未来几天或几周内回答的问题。Studies show that this simple step of identifying the current holes in your knowledge naturally sparks more curiosity, and subsequent engagement, in the relevant material.研究表明，这一简单的步骤能找出你知识中的漏洞，自然会激发更多的好奇心，以及对相关材料的后续参与感。Your queries do not need to be profound: there is no such thing as a stupid question as long as your query prompts a desire to know more.你的问题不需要很深奥：只要问题能激起求知更多的欲望，那就没有什么愚蠢的问题。内容来源：每日英语听力｜双语精读等