Intercultural Curiosity
entry by Julie M. Marx, Global Family Expert at Expat Valley
An intrinsic motivation to explore, understand, and engage with unfamiliar cultural environments, practices, and perspectives. Recognized as a foundational disposition underpinning intercultural competence development: individuals with high intercultural curiosity are more likely to seek out cross-cultural interactions, tolerate ambiguity, and persist through the discomfort of cultural learning.
Comparable terms
Openness to experience (psychology — Big Five personality trait most consistently associated with intercultural curiosity and cultural agility) · Cultural interest (HR/mobility — functional descriptor) · Curiosity (positive psychology — Kashdan; broader construct; intercultural curiosity is a domain-specific form) · Cultural appetite (coaching — informal)
Why this matters
Intercultural curiosity is often what makes a global childhood or career enriching rather than only disruptive. It drives the learning that builds intercultural competence over time. Parents and schools can intentionally nurture it instead of letting fear or fatigue shut it down.
Cross-references
Cultural Humility (Cultural Adaptation); Cultural Agility (Cultural Adaptation); Intercultural Sensitivity (Identity & Belonging); Intercultural Competence (Cultural Adaptation); Expandable Worldview (Identity & Belonging). Intercultural sensitivity is the perceptual capacity that intercultural curiosity motivates and sustains — curiosity drives the engagement that develops sensitivity. Intercultural competence is the broader behavioral outcome that curiosity, as a foundational disposition, enables. The expandable worldview describes the cognitive and experiential outcome of sustained intercultural curiosity across a mobile life.
Sources
Intercultural curiosity is consistently cited in practitioner and research literature as a foundational disposition for intercultural learning, but lacks a single foundational source under this specific term. The most directly applicable verified research connects curiosity to openness to experience in the Big Five framework: Costa, P.T. & McCrae, R.R. (1992). NEO PI-R Professional Manual. Psychological Assessment Resources. For the cultural learning application, see: Caligiuri, P. (2012). Cultural Agility. Jossey-Bass, which addresses curiosity and openness as foundational to cultural agility development.
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