Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Date of Award

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

M.S.

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Laura, Powell, Ph.D.

Abstract

As political polarization and mass distrust in scientific consensus increases, psychologists have sought to understand individual differences that contribute to polarized political and scientific reasoning. One emerging concept in this area is science curiosity (SC), the disposition to seek and engage with scientific information for personal gratification (Kahan et al., 2017). A handful of studies have identified SC as an offsetting variable in politically motivated reasoning (Motta et al., 2021). However, the psychometric structure of SC remains underexplored; it is unclear whether SC represents a distinctive, unidimensional disposition or merely a manifestation of general curiosity traits. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the psychometric validity of SC by examining its relationship with other curiosity-related traits. A sample of undergraduate students completed a series of scales measuring these psychometric traits. Multiple regression analyses revealed that SC was significantly predicted by openness, intellectual humility, covert social curiosity, interest curiosity, and political party belongingness. However, no predictor accounted for unique amount of variance in SC individually. Results indicate that SC is not a strong manifestation of other curiosity-traits, although limitations in sample size prevent any strong conclusion regarding the validity of SC. Future directions regarding the validity of SC are discussed, emphasizing further research assessing the factor-structure of SC and its relationship with other curiosity-related traits.

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