The curiosity catch. An exploratory transdiagnostic approach to understanding how different facets of curiosity relate to mental health dimensions

Diplôme Master The curiosity catch. An exploratory transdiagnostic approach to understanding how different facets of curiosity relate to mental health dimensions eng 2025-09-03 author Poggia Floriana 691756 director Stussi Yoann 0000-0002-8601-6737 700303 Section de psychologie (PSICO) director Sander David 558712 Section de psychologie (PSICO) 88 Curiosity is an intrinsic desire to acquire new knowledge and experiences driving exploratory behavior and it appears to play an ambivalent role in relation to mental health. This may be partly due to the diversity of assessment measures employed across the literature. To gain a more holistic understanding of which aspects of curiosity may support or hinder mental health, we investigated the interplay between its multiple facets - using the Five-Dimensional Curiosity Scale Revised (5DCR) - and common aversive mental conditions, including anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and cyberaddiction. Adopting a transdiagnostic perspective, we first conducted an exploratory factor analysis to identify core dimensions underlying these conditions. In a second step, we performed a network analysis including the extracted factors and the curiosity subscales. Results revealed that different facets of curiosity were differentially related to mental health outcomes. Particularly, stress tolerance emerged as a central facet, showing the strongest associations with anxiety-depression, compulsive behavior, and problematic media use, and partially acting as a bridge between those dimensions and other facets of curiosity. Additionally, thrill-seeking - through its link to impulsivity - was identified as potentially unfavorable, particularly in its relation to problematic media use. The remaining curiosity facets showed weaker or no direct associations with mental health factors. The study suggests that the ability to tolerate the stress caused by a lack of information and channeling thrill-seeking into constructive activities seem to be key conditions for curiosity to foster learning and growth, rather than to be associated with aversive mental states. Dewey 150 Maitrise universitaire en psychologie 108 Section de psychologie 71 false 593 Emergence et expression de l'émotion (E3 Lab) 116f1a7d-5684-4df6-b050-8e1b667727fe Master thesis Public Poggia_Floriana_The_curiosity_catch.pdf 3012796 application/pdf 4610c8013e0c9c376ad6f3fe6b9fe613a97fee75bb3ebfbb8a9c8c41c28da246 openAccess Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation / Section de psychologie

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The curiosity catch. An exploratory transdiagnostic approach to understanding how different facets of curiosity relate to mental health dimensions				2025	43	338

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