Circumventing resistance to novel information: Piquing curiosity through strategic information revelation

Individuals are repeatedly exposed to new information over time, yet adjustment is typically insufficient and people are generally unaffected by this type of exposure. To circumvent this resistance to novel information, the current research posits that the mere timing by which the same information is differentially-revealed can prompt re-evaluation by heightening individuals' curiosity in the new information. Three experiments show that strategically-revealing new information promotes re-evaluation by increasing curiosity in the new information. Importantly, the effect of curiosity on the re-evaluation process occurs irrespective of the valence of the new information yet only when the revealed information is diagnostic. Collectively, these results provide a unique lens into the impact of curiosity in circumventing resistance to novel information and, consequently, a novel catalyst for future research on judgment updating, resistance to persuasion, and omission neglect.