Curiosity Is the Wick in the Candle of Learning, but Does It Burn Out? Examining the Effects of Curiosity on Employee Burnout

Abstract: While curiosity is generally considered a positive workplace attribute, its effects on employee burnout, a consequential workplace outcome are unclear. We draw on the Job Resources-Demand Model and a multidimensional understanding of burnout to theorize how curiosity may influence employee experiences of burnout. Across three pre-registered studies, we show that experimentally inducing curiosity in a longitudinal design reduces and mitigates cynicism-based burnout but has no significant effect on exhaustion- or inefficiency- based burnout. We demonstrated this pattern of findings in a month-long field experiment of college interns across different U.S. colleges and industries (Study 1) as well as in two two-week-long experiments of full-time workers across various job roles and industries (Studies 2 and 3). Additionally, we find that learning goal orientation mediates the relationship between curiosity and cynicism-based burnout (Study 3).

Keywords: burnout, curiosity, longitudinal, cynicism, learning goal orientation