In recent years, empirical work has documented a curiosity for negative content – people deliberately view images detailing death, violence or harm or engage with other aversive stimuli. The question that emerges from this work is why people are curious about aversive information. Our central premise is that curiosity for negative content can be valuable – it may serve fundamental psychological functions and have beneficial outcomes. In terms of benefits, negative content may provide an individual with an opportunity to acquire knowledge, reduce uncertainty, experience valued emotions, or engage with the experiences of others. At the same time, the exploration of negative information may be costly. In this article, we discuss which factors may motivate or discourage the exploration of negative content.

近年来，经验工作证明了人们对负面内容的好奇心–人们刻意观看详细描述死亡，暴力或伤害的图像，或与其他厌恶刺激物互动。这项工作提出的问题是，为什么人们对厌恶信息感到好奇。我们的中心前提是，对负面内容的好奇心可能是有价值的–它可以发挥基本的心理功能并产生有益的结果。在收益方面，负面内容可能会为个人提供获取知识，减少不确定性，体验有价值的情感或与他人的体验互动的机会。同时，对负面信息的探索可能是昂贵的。在本文中，我们讨论了哪些因素可能会激发或阻碍对负面内容的探索。