Curiosity as Social Practice

One of the most important insights from the call was Pete Kaminski's distinction between innate curiosity and learned social practices of curiosity.

Pete's Core Insight

"Some curiosity is definitely innate, but another thing that Gil's story made me realize, is some curiosity is a social practice."

Learning Social Curiosity

Pete's Personal Story

Pete described himself as "kind of shy" and shared:

"I learned from Johanne, my wife, to be able to be curious and have a conversation with somebody, even if maybe you don't care in the grander scheme of things, or you're shy, or whatever."

"It's just a rote thing, right? It's just human and polite to be sitting with somebody and to ask them, you know, how's your life? Do you have pets? Do you have friends? Where did you grow up? Those kinds of things. It's not hard to do."

Key points:

Pete wasn't taught this by parents, peers, or school
He learned it quickly from Johanne
It's a teachable skill, not just innate trait
It helps everybody, not just the person being asked

The Five Basic Questions

Pete suggested there's a simple set of questions anyone can learn:

"Well, you ask even better questions, Stacey. But, you know, there's a set of, like, 5 questions that even a man can learn, you know, ask this question, really care about the answer, and there's probably a follow-up question."

Examples:

How's your life?
Do you have pets?
Do you have friends?
Where did you grow up?
Where did you go to school?

Genuine vs Performative

Stacey's Important Caveat

Stacey Druss warned:

"Curiosity when it's not genuine, can also be really annoying. As someone who sometimes feels, or has felt disempowered, sometimes curiosity can feel like I have to explain myself."

Pete agreed:

"Insincere curiosity is worse than just shutting up."

The Path to Genuine Interest

Pete's nuanced response:

"It's not hard at all to learn to ask humbly and be genuinely interested in the answer. Where did you grow up? It's not... I can ask that question and not care about the answer, but it's not hard as a social practice for me to say, I really do care where you grew up."

The progression:

Learn the mechanical practice of asking
Ask with humility and openness
Allow genuine interest to develop
Accept if the other person doesn't reciprocate

Gender Dimensions

Women's Work

Pete shared Johanne's observation:

"Men are acculturated to not be curious, especially about women, about lots of stuff, right? And so in a way, it was a kind of women's work, that she doesn't mind doing because it's not the worst thing that women have to do in this world."

"She felt like she was always the one who were like, you know, it's not that hard, guys. Just ask questions."

Power and Curiosity

Stacey Druss:

"As someone who sometimes feels, or has felt disempowered, sometimes curiosity can feel like I have to explain myself."

This reveals curiosity isn't neutral - who asks whom matters. Questions from those with power can feel like demands; questions from equals feel like connection.

Etiquette as Codified Social Curiosity

Gil Friend:

"@Pete Kaminski This used to be taught as 'etiquette'"

Traditional etiquette included:

How to make small talk
Appropriate questions in various settings
Turn-taking in conversation
How to show interest without prying

The breakdown of etiquette education may explain some perceived decline in curiosity.

The Participatory Game

Pete Kaminski:

"It's a bit of a participatory game that is best played by both participants; it's okay to answer by redirecting to a different topic rather than one you don't want to talk about. Navigating that social practice may be something that people have to be helped to learn, but it's pretty easy to learn."

Key elements:

Both participants need to play
Redirecting is acceptable
It's teachable
It's easier than it seems

Scott's Playing Games Model

Scott Moehring proposed that every interaction is a game with five elements:

Goal - purpose, point, reason for interacting
Rules - what's allowed (stated, implied, or customary)
Voluntary - invitation AND acceptance, constantly renegotiated
Uncertain - can't know the outcome for sure
Improve - requires some skill

This framework helps understand curiosity as a voluntary, rule-governed practice that both parties must consent to.

Gil's Observations

Gil Friend noticed one-way conversations becoming more common:

"I would ask them questions, and they would not ask me questions. Which I found perplexing."

His adaptation:

"I've taken recently to doing something I've never done before, just like start to talk about things in the course of meeting someone new. I'll start to talk about what I'm up to, what I'm doing, what I want to talk about, what I would have wanted to be asked about."

This suggests some people haven't learned the reciprocal pattern of social curiosity.

Where Social Curiosity Should Be Learned

Pete suggested:

"Somewhere in our world, it ought to be and end up that you get taught by your peers, or your school, or your parents, or somebody. You know, here's some things that you can do to enact curiosity, even if you're not particularly interested, just enact it as a social practice because it helps everybody."

The question: Who teaches this now? If not parents, schools, or peers, where do people learn?

Benefits of Social Curiosity

Even when not deeply felt, enacted curiosity:

Helps people feel good when you talk about them
Helps you learn stuff you wouldn't have known otherwise
Creates connection across differences
Makes time pass pleasantly (in carriages, airplanes, waiting rooms)
Builds social cohesion

Modern Challenges

Scott Moehring:

"@Pete Kaminski Asking about people — who they are, what they are into, who they are in relationship with — is that now considered intrusive and rude? Are we now supposed to let people reveal on their own?"

This raises whether norms are shifting about what questions are appropriate.

The Listening Component

LP1 (Louise):

"And remember the answer!!!"

Social curiosity requires not just asking but remembering and following up - genuine care over time.

Unanswered Questions

How do we teach social curiosity when traditional etiquette is no longer widely taught?
Can we distinguish between appropriate reserve and failure to learn social practices?
How do we navigate cultural differences in social curiosity norms?
What's the relationship between shyness and social curiosity skills?

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