Contrasting Proverbs as a Measure of Attitudes of College Students toward Curiosity-Related Behaviors

Abstract

42 pairs of contrasting proverbs chosen to measure attitudes toward curiosity-related behavior were administered to 70 college students along with the Ontario Test of Motivation, purported to measure attitudes toward ambiguity, complexity, novelty, and specific curiosity. The proverbs test yielded an index of stability of .91; scores correlated positively and significantly with each of the variables measured by the Ontario scale. As correlations were not high (r .35), attitudes measured by the two instruments seem largely independent of each other.