Empathic Curiosity

Last Friday night my fifteen-year-old son went to see Pirates of the Caribbean III .   The next morning he teased his younger sister Shelby.  "You won't believe what happens to Will," he said.  Upon hearing those words Shelby absolutely had to know what happened to Will and pestered Dominic until he divulged his secret.

Moments later Shelby came into the living room where Amy and I were enjoying our morning coffee.  "Can I tell you what happened to Will in Pirates of the Caribbean," she asked?  She squirmed back and forth on the couch awaiting our answer.  "Please, please, please," she said.

What curious behavior.  Why would Shelby care about the fate of a character in a movie she hadn't yet seen.  Stranger still, why would Shelby be so eager to tell me and Amy?  We hadn't even expressed any interest in knowing, yet she was desperate to tell.  The answer, I think, sheds some light on the forces that power word-of-mouth.

Curiosity
Curiosity is defined as "a gap in knowledge."  (There's a nice explanation of this in the book Made to Stick) Notice that it's not the absence of knowledge, but rather a gap.  This means you must possess some knowledge before you can experience curiosity.  Visually it looks like this.

Shelby possessed some existing knowledge of Pirates of the Caribbean.  She had seen the first two films.  However, when Dominic said, "You won't believe what happens to Will"  he planted the knowledge ("something happens to Will") and created a gap (Shelby didn't know what happens to will) filled by Shelby's curiosity.

Okay, that makes sense but doesn't explain why Shelby cared whether Amy and I knew what happened to Will?  Why did she want to make certain that we knew?

Empathic Curiosity
I believe Shelby wanted to tell me what happened to Will because she recognized the gap in my knowledge.  I didn't see the gap, but she did, and it drove her nuts.  She was as desperate to close my gap as she had been to close her own.  She was experiencing what I call "empathic curiosity."

Empathic curiosity occurs when you notice a gap in someone else's knowledge and feel the curiosity they would feel if they knew about their gap.  It is responsible for sayings like, "You don't know what you're missing" and also explains, in part, why people are so motivated to tell certain other people about new products. 

As with curiosity, empathic curiosity requires a knowledge gap and thus some base-level of knowledge in which the gap can appear. Shelby knew I had seen the first two movies.  She recognized that I knew the character Will, and so might care about his fate.  She also knew I was unaware of what happened to him.  She saw both the knowledge and the gap and so felt curiosity on my behalf.

Interestingly, Shelby felt no compulsion to tell other people she encountered that day.  They too may have seen the movie and might have been equally interested in what happened to Will, but Shelby was unaware of their knowledge.  She didn't know what they knew.  Oblivious to any gaps, she did not feel empathic curiosity.  This might explain why word-of-mouth occurs most frequently between with close personal relationships.  We are more aware of their knowledge than we are of a stranger's or casual acquaintance's and thus better able to see and respond to their gaps.

Neither did Shelby tell people who had already seen the movie; like our neighbor Aaron who had gone to see it with Dominic.  She deemed Aaron's knowledge complete.  Without gaps, no curiosity could exist and thus no motivation to share what she knew.

If empathic curiosity motivates word-of-mouth, then mass advertising can actually inhibit it by creating the perception of complete knowledge.  If I think my neighbor also saw an ad even though they hadn't, then I don't perceive a gap and I won't share what I know.

On the other hand, if used properly then mass advertising could also enhance word-of-mouth.  Such a plan might use mass advertising to create a general base of knowledge among consumers (there is a character named Will) before seeding interesting details (you won't believe what happened to Will) with select consumers through less obvious but viral means like online video or email. In this scenario mass creates the knowledge and viral marketing creates the gap.  Together they produce empathic curiosity that fuels word-of-mouth.

I need to think about this some more, but it's an idea that interests me a lot because it suggests specific plans for creating word-of-mouth campaigns.  What's your take?

Spread the fire. GS

Comments

[Rachel Hauck]

Interesting. :)

While reading this, I kept thinking how Shelby wanted to tell people she cares about - her parents.

As I read, I felt my minor theory was confirmed. She didn't want to tell any one else she met that day because she either didn't care as much about them or her desire to "spread the word" was satisfied by telling her parents.

Could it have been like gossip? A person has a good piece of news, perhaps shocking, and they can't wait to tell someone. Once they do, the "thrill" is over so the desire to continue spreading the word has passed.

Or, perhaps discovering what happened to Will impacted her emotionally and by talking about it, her excitement or even worry was abated.

In marketing, how can we create this same excitement and desire so the person with the knowledge wants to tell more than one person, and is not satisified with delivering her knowledge one or two time.

Fun to think about. :)

Rachel

[ML Eqatin]

Hey, maybe you are reading too much marketing and too little people sense into Shelby's behavior. Owning a piece of knowledge that others do not have gives you status. Shelby is no doubt fairly accurate in her asessment of who would give her attention or status for her statement, and who would not (or perhaps whose attention she did not particularly want).
And Rachel, alas, a tidbit told does not end the desire to continue spreading gossip. Every re-telling reinforces a gossip's behavior, unless she receives a sharp put-down. And even then, she is most likely to gossip about that.
Listened to your book, Greg. Commented on other blogs about it. Bought it for my reference shelf. Thanx.
MLE (Mom of many)

[Greg Stielstra]

I've been reading about marginal utility of gain lately. I wonder whether it applies here too, or whether I'm just projecting my current interest onto this post?

Marginal utility of gain states that as we acquire more of something we value each new "something" a little less than the one before. Finding a dollar on the sidewalk feels good. But, finding a second dollar on the sidewalk doesn't make us feel twice as good. Our objective gain doubled from $1 to $2, but our subjective gain (pleasure or satisfaction. economists call it "utility") increased from 1 to about 1.88.

This may explain why Foreigner sang "It Feels Like the First Time" and not "It Feels Like the Second Time."

As the pleasure from retelling what she knew steadily declined it would, at some point, slip below the threshold above which the pleasure of telling exceeded the work involved. Once that happened Shelby would stop talking about her news.

I'm guessing here, but it makes sense in light of marginal utility of gain.

Thanks for listening to and telling others about my book. Spread the fire. GS

[ML Eqatin]

That sounds reasonable, and probably works when the reasoning part of the brain is in gear. But my specialty is people who have addictive behaviors, and for them it is just the opposite. Each repetition lessens the pleasure, but increases the desire to repeat the behavior in the hopes of getting that 'lost satisfaction'. This may have biological roots; for instance, rats can be taught to 'gamble' for a food reward until the desire to gamble outweights the reward even when they are starving. Of course, rats aren't prone to sin, which explains why it is fairly hard to make them gambling addicts, but some humans only take once.