Curiosity is pain, Why are we curious, Placebo effect at its finest
Weekly I/O #90: Curiosity and Pain, Evolved Curiosity for Survival, Placebo Producer Switch, YC Office Hour Questions, Write to Provide Context
Hi friends,
Happy New Year! If you have 2025 goals, I included some questions in this I/O that I hope can be helpful for you. Most importantly, happy learning!
Here are five things I learned this week. Feel free to send me any feedback or interesting articles/books/podcasts/stuff. Most importantly, happy learning :)
Input
Here's a list of what I learned this week.
1. Curiosity drives us to seek information, not because we expect pleasure from finding the answer, but to relieve the discomfort from the gap in our knowledge. Much like hunger, curiosity is a painful state of deprivation.
Paper: The psychology of curiosity: A review and reinterpretation
Why does curiosity often feel like an itch? It starts subtly but grows increasingly uncomfortable, pushing us to stay up late to watch some videos about obscure topics to relieve that feeling.
George Loewenstein's information gap theory explains this phenomenon. He defines an "Information Gap" as a question a person is aware of but uncertain about and suggests that curiosity sparks when we notice a gap between what we know and what we want to know.
This theory frames curiosity as a state of deprivation, like hunger or thirst. Just as hunger motivates us to eat and thirst drives us to drink, curiosity pushes us to seek information. This drive is not about the pleasure of obtaining the answer but the unease of the gap itself.
In his words, curiosity is a "cognitive-induced deprivation that arises from the perception of a gap in knowledge and understanding."
Loewenstein idea is supported by fMRI studies. One study reveals that curiosity activates brain regions like the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex (AIC/ACC), which are linked to conflict, arousal, and aversive states. This neural activity suggests that we first experience curiosity as a negative state.
Moreover, relief of this discomfort is correlated with activity in reward centers of the brain, which means it's reducing the aversive state, rather than anticipating information, that feels rewarding.
It's important to note that pain and pleasure don't cancel each other out, a concept aligned with Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory. According to Herzberg's theory, job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are independent factors. Addressing sources of dissatisfaction doesn't necessarily create satisfaction, just as reducing discomfort from curiosity doesn't always result in joy. It simply provides relief. The joy you experienced might be caused by other factors.
2. Why are we curious? Curiosity evolved as a survival mechanism, driving early humans to explore new territories to secure long-term resources, while balancing exploration risks with immediate needs.
Paper: The psychology and neuroscience of curiosity
Curiosity is a fundamental drive in humans and animals. But why did humans evolve to be curious?
Imagine our ancestors if they had no desire to wander beyond their familiar territory. Their immediate needs might have been met until their local resources ran out.
Imagine if our ancestors had no desire to wander beyond their familiar territory. They might have satisfied their immediate needs but would eventually face resource shortages. Repeatedly using the same local resources could lead to direct competition and conflict, and such a strategy is not ideal for long-term survival.
In contrast, curiosity-driven groups ventured beyond their usual territories, which led them to discover new food sources and better adapt to changing environments.
Therefore, from an evolutionary perspective, curiosity enhances survival and reproductive success. However, exploring new places can be dangerous. This is why humans evolved not to have infinite curiosity but to maintain a cautious equilibrium between exploration and exploitation.
Even simple organisms demonstrate information-seeking behavior, though it isn't typically classified as curiosity. For instance, Caenorhabditis elegans, a roundworm with only 302 neurons, develops a searching strategy beyond simply moving toward food scents. Like humans, they explore brand new directions that provide better long-term payoffs where they trade off information for rewards. Other organisms, such as crabs, bees, ants, and moths, also demonstrate similar behaviors that balance both immediate rewards and the acquisition of new information.
3. Producer Switch: How creative professionals can use the placebo effect to resolve subjective feedback and create a win-win situation with collaborators.
Article: The truth behind Lee Sklar's custom 'producer's switch'
The legendary bassist Leland Sklar famously installed a "Producer switch" device on his bass to handle producer feedback. Whenever his producer asks for a new sound adjustment, he flips the switch dramatically to produce "something different" from his playing.
The catch? The switch does absolutely nothing.
However, as long as he performed this theatrical adjustment, the producers were immediately satisfied with the new "improved" sound. This producer switch saved Sklar a lot of time and energy arguing with the producer by doing nothing.
This is the placebo effect in the wild at its finest. By providing a psychological but visible solution to subjective requests, Sklar created a win-win situation: producers felt heard and satisfied, while he maintained his preferred sound.
Many creative professionals who regularly navigate subjective feedback and client relationships can also adopt this kind of placebo effect. If you can deeply understand human perception and expectation management like Sklar, you can get away with many headaches while satisfying everyone.
4. Three YC office hours questions to drive progress: What's holding you back from moving faster? What are your goals for the next two weeks? Did you hit your goals for the last two weeks, and why?
Podcast: Summary: Lessons from working with 600+ YC startups | Gustaf Alströmer (Y Combinator, Airbnb)
These questions are from how Y Combinator (YC) runs its office hours. YC uses two types of office hours: regular and group, each with different goals and questions.
Regular office hours are typically held by one or two YC partners with a startup, occurring weekly or bi-weekly. The primary question asked in these sessions is: "What's holding you back from moving faster?" They don't want to focus on general updates or strategy discussions. They want to help founders pinpoint their true priorities.
Oftentimes, the founders don't immediately know what is slowing their progress. Therefore, the office hours are designed to discover the root causes by identifying obstacles and bottlenecks that are not obvious when the founders are heads down building the product.
On the other hand, group office hours are with multiple startups, typically six or seven. The main questions in group office hours are: "What are your goals for the next two weeks?" and "What were your goals for the last two weeks, and did you hit them?
These two questions, along with the accountability structure, encourage founders to set clear objectives and make progress, as they don't want to appear stagnant in front of their peers. The goal is to provide a supportive and productive environment where founders can hold each other accountable.
Even if you cannot join YC's office hours, you can still ask yourself these questions to examine your progress or, even better, form your own peer group to hold each other accountable and drive progress.
5. The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. — Edwin Schlossberg
Quote
The writer's role is to craft environments that serve as a catalyst for the reader's thoughts. At the same time, the writer stimulates their own intellectual engagement during the writing process.
Recap
Try answering these five simple questions to review and reinforce what you've learned:
That's it. Thanks for reading. Please share which input you found the most helpful or intriguing. Just reply to this email with a number—it's quick and easy!
And as always, feel free to send me any interesting ideas you came across recently!
Looking forward to learning from you.
Cheers,
Cheng-Wei
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