ABSTRACT
The English word ‘curiosity’ is derived from the Latin curiosus, which simultaneously means ‘inquisitive’ and ‘careful’. A quick glance at other widely spoken languages either confirms or expands the definition of ‘curiosity’. The Chinese expression for curiosity is the compound word, how-chi, which means wanting to know more about something that arouses one’s interest. The purpose of such curiosity is to gather useful information, pacify phrase-specific emotional and cognitive needs, and accrue knowledge necessary for alloplastic or autoplastic adaptation to life. Just as language can serve various instinctual functions and words can stand for different bodily secretions, curiosity of any form and in any modality can provide avenues of instinctual discharge and for actualizing repressed relational scenarios. A counterpart to the proposal that curiosity is ‘hard-wired’ and phylogenetically evident is that curiosity can lead to trouble and even life-threatening occurrences.
