Cultivating curiosity exercise

(daily behavior; reflection: approx. 30 min)

WHAT: With this exercise, you are going to practice with transforming your judgement into curiosity,
and as such cultivating curiosity.

WHY: We as people tend to turn our observation (what we see, hear, smell, feel) quickly into
judgement (what we think about something). Oftentimes this happens so fast, that we are not even
consciously aware of what observation is causing our judgement (e.g., what behaviour makes you
judge that “she’s a bad parent”), nor which underlying beliefs feed into our judgement (what moral or
cultural convictions about good parenting make you believe that this behaviour is an example of bad
parenting?). The problem with being quick to judge are twofold: 1) our judgements are often faulty
due to biases such as the fundamental attribution error and confirmation bias; 2) with judgement we
create distance between us and the other, which hampers trust, open communication, collaboration,
and relationship building.

Especially in intercultural settings, we may be quick to judge, as in these setting people tend to think
and act differently than we do. Our judgements may also likely be flawed, as we approach the
situation from our own cultural values, not understanding the values and underlying motives of the
other. We may quickly think that the behaviour of the other is weird, annoying or even stupid.
However, if we would know where the other is coming from, if we would understand their underlying
motives, we would probably be much less judgemental towards their behaviour, thereby reducing the
distance between us and the other, and generating a basis for trust, open communication,
collaboration and relationship building.

Consider the following example: a student from East Asia may show reticence to speak up in class.
Western teachers and students may quickly judge that this is not good, as we think it is a sign of
inadequate linguistic competence, shyness, disinterest in the course, lack of commitment, etc.
However, this reticent behaviour may also be (partly) due to the cultural assumption of the Asian
student that they as student should perform the role of listener and receiver.1 Having this
understanding, Western teachers and students may judge and approach the East Asian student in a
different, more appropriate manner.

HOW: To tackle the challenge to not judge too quickly, you should not supress your judgement
(because suppressing is very difficult, cognitively heavy, and can lead to self-judgement about the
judgement) but transform your judgment into curiosity. Curiosity will help you gather the information
needed to understand others better, which will foster acceptance or even appreciation of someone
else’s way of thinking and behaviour, and as such narrow the distance between you and the other.

Therefore, every time that you notice that you are judging – on a personal level (e.g., she’s too much,
he’s lazy, she’s bossy, he’s unreliable, etc. etc.), cultural level (e.g., the Dutch are so rude), or a
societal level (e.g., we may judge what’s happening in certain parts of the world), take the following 4
steps:

1) What factually happened? What has been factually said or done?

2) What is my interpretation of the behaviour?
3) Are there other interpretations of the behaviour possible? Come up with at least 2 alternative
interpretations.

1 Li, X., & Jia, X. (2006). Why don't you speak up?: East Asian students' participation patterns in American and Chinese ESL classrooms.
Intercultural Communication Studies, 15(1), 192.

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 4) What information can you gather to make sure that your interpretation is the right
interpretation? What questions can you ask? For instance, is this person always showing this
behaviour? In which situations are they showing this behaviour? Would they have the same
interpretation of their behaviour? Could there be a cultural or contextual component
influencing your and his judgement of his behaviour?
5) Would a different interpretation of what has happened lead you to feel differently about the
situation?

By taking these 5 steps, you turn your judgment into curiosity, which can lead to you realizing that
your judgement is (partly) wrong, which will in turn reduce your judgement. Sometimes however, you
will conclude that your judgement was right. Then taking the 5 steps was still worth it, because by
being open to you possibly being wrong, you have collected the information that you need to come to
a better-informed judgement.

Reflect below on at least 3 judgements that you have transformed into curiosity in the last 4 weeks.

Judgement 1: I had to do a group project for one of my classes where most of the members in the
group were boys. I assumed that because of that they would want to do the group project very last
minute.

Step 1: From past experiences, boys usually plan less and like to do assignments more last minute.
Thus I assumed that this would be the case in this project too. When we had our first meeting and I
asked when we want to finish the project, one of the guys said that he doesn’t mind any deadline
but that he is too busy to work on it this week.

Step 2: I assumed that this would imply that no work would be done by any of the members in the
first week and thus the assignment would be left for last minute.

Step 3: Could be that one of the boys was genuinely busy but that would not mean that the others
were also busy and would not want to work on it earlier. It could also be that even if he was busy
he would work on it then more the following week so the assignment could still be finished in time.

Step 4: Asking the members if they would want to finish the assignment earlier rather than
assuming this. And asking the person who said he was busy one week if he would be fine working
on the assignment more the following week to make up for it. There is definetly the contextual
component in this case because the person could genuinely be busy and because of my past
experiences I would have assumed that the behaviour of all boys in group projects is the same.

Step 5: If I would have understood that the person is genuinely busy and not mirrored one
members circumstances on the other members of the group, I could have still believed that the
project could have been done in time. (Actually we ended up finishing the assignment one week
before the deadline so I was indeed wrong).

Judgement 2: I met a girl at a party and she was barely talking in any of the group conversations so I
assumed that she was arrogant.

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 Step 1: The girl was there in many of the group conversations where I was also there. I never heard
her share her opinion on anything or ask someone about themselves.

Step 2: I assumed that she was not interested in talking to us and thus that she is perhaps arrogant.

Step 3: Perhaps the girl was just shy to talk in larger groups or she was tired and thus did not want
to talk.

Step 4: I could have tried to involve her in the conversations by asking her what she thought or if
she had experienced something similar. I could have also approached her later separately and tried
to talk to her to understand if she is genuinely arrogant or perhaps she was just more introverted.

Step 5: If I had thought about the other interpretations e.g her being introverted, I might have
approached her later to talk. But because I judged her to be arrogant, I never ended up talking to
her after the group conversations.

Judgement 3: My sister was angry but I assumed that because she was on her periods it was just a
mood swing so I didn’t bother to understand why she was angry. But it turned out that she was just
angry about the fact that she felt like I don’t help in cleaning as much as she would want me to.

Step 1: I was eating lunch and my sister got irritated about the fact that I had not put something in
the fridge. But she got very angry about that so it seemed like an overreaction.

Step 2: I assumed that it was just a mood swing because of her periods so I didn’t think too much of
it and didn’t bother to check up on her later.

Step 3: It could be that she was genuinely angry about the fact that I didn’t put something in the
fridge and that it was a build up of the other times where I just leave things and don’t clean it up
after.

Step 4: I should have gone after to ask her why she was so angry instead of just assuming it.

Step 5: If I would have just asked her why she was angry the situation could have been resolved
right there. But I did not ask her for 2-3 hours which lead her to get even angrier at me.

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© De Connectors Lab