Interest and Interests: The Psychology of Constructive Capriciousness

Abstract

This article develops a perspective on interest and interests as aspects of motivation, emotion, and personality. Interest is viewed as a capricious emotion with few, if any, immediate adaptational functions; it serves long-term adaptational goals by cultivating knowledge and diversifying skills and experience. Interests are viewed as idiosyncratic intrinsic motives that promote expertise. Theories of how interests arise are reviewed and organized. A model of how the emotion of interest participates in the development of enduring interests is proposed. The author concludes that apparently frivolous aspects of motivation and personality such as “idle curiosity” and avocations seem to play complex roles in human experience and development.