The 4 Types of Curious Investors
Use Kashdan's five dimensions of curiosity to harness your superpower
After two decades of work on curiosity, including data collection from thousands of adults, Todd Kashdan declares in Psychology Today (via Kottke):
We uncovered 5 dimensions of curiosity:
• Joyous Exploration. This is the prototype of curiosity—the recognition and desire to seek out new knowledge and information, and the subsequent joy of learning and growing.
• Deprivation Sensitivity. This dimension has a distinct emotional tone, with anxiety and tension being more prominent than joy—pondering abstract or complex ideas, trying to solve problems, and seeking to reduce gaps in knowledge.
• Stress Tolerance. This dimension is about the willingness to embrace the doubt, confusion, anxiety, and other forms of distress that arise from exploring new, unexpected, complex, mysterious, or obscure events.
• Social Curiosity. Wanting to know what other people are thinking and doing by observing, talking, or listening in to conversations.
• Thrill Seeking. The willingness to take physical, social, and financial risks to acquire varied, complex, and intense experiences.
From these dimensions, Kashdan identified four types of curious people:
The Fascinated
Problem Solvers
Empathizers
Avoiders
Curiosity is core value at Loup and—I believe—a critical attribute of any great investor. Kashdan’s framework gives us an opportunity to assess the specifics of curiosity in its various forms and which of those most benefit investors.
1. The Fascinated Investor
The Fascinated investor ranks high on all dimensions of curiosity, particularly joyous exploration. An all-time great investor once told me that “curiosity can be expensive,” and she was referring to The Fascinated investor that overindulges in joyous exploration for the sake of joyous exploration. Enjoy responsibly.
2. Problem Solver Investor
Problem Solver investors are committed to the pain of embracing tension. They are contrarian. They seek problems that are complex and where the rewards of truth discovery are the greatest. Problem Solver investors make great long-term investors.
3. Empathizer Investor
Empathizer investors hunt for data points everywhere. They rank high on social curiosity, observe human behavior, and retain non-obvious insights from watching, asking, and listening. Then they apply those insights to the future in order to predict it. Ask good questions and listen well.
4. Avoider Investor
It appears that Kashdan employs this fourth category of curious people as a scientifically valid category for the ‘not curious.’ Avoid Avoider investors. They rank low on all dimensions of curiosity, particularly dimension three, stress tolerance. Instead, practice stress tolerance: “Embrace the doubt, confusion, anxiety, and other forms of distress that arise from exploring new, unexpected, complex, mysterious, or obscure events.”
Joy, confidence, humility, listening, restraint, and embracing the tension of complexity bubble to the surface as key attributes of the curious investor.