Jordan Litman

Education

M.A., Ph.D., Experimental Psychology, University of South Florida
B.A. Psychology, Arcadia University

Areas of Expertise

Dr. Jordan Litman’s research focuses on the nature, dimensionality, and measurement of trait-curiosity, and its role in the activation of state-curiosity and subsequent knowledge-seeking activities. He is also interested in how metamemory processes (e.g., what individuals think they do or don’t know) influence the arousal and intensity of state-curiosity. He is the recipient of the Reimagine Education 2016 Gold Award for his work on Cultivating Curiosity.

He also has a strong secondary interest in how proactive coping with stress can lead to positive health and well-being outcomes. Most recently, he has been exploring how inquisitiveness about the inner self (e.g., one’s identity, the meaning of past experiences) maps onto psychological well-being over the lifespan.

Dr. Litman holds the rank of associate professor of psychology as part-time faculty at the University of Maine at Machias. He also is a visiting research scientist and consultant at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, and a Research Fellow at the Center for Curiosity.

Visit his website at drjlitman.net.

Representative Publications

Litman, J.A.  (2019). Curiosity: Nature, dimensionality, and determinants, In K.A. Renninger & S.E. Hidi (Eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Motivation and Learning. (pp. 418-442). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Litman, J. A., Robinson, O. C., & Demetre, J. (2017). Intrapersonal curiosity: Inquisitiveness about the inner-self. Self and Identity, 16, 231-250.

Robinson, O. C., Demetre, J., & Litman, J. A. (2017). Adult life stage and crisis as predictors of curiosity and authenticity: Testing inferences from Erikson’s lifespan theory. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 41, 426-431.

Lauriola, M., Litman, J. A., Mussel, P., De Santis, R., Crowson, H.M., & Hoffman, R.R. (2015).  Epistemic curiosity and self-regulation. Personality and Individual Differences, 83, 202-207.

Piotrowski, J.T., Litman, J.A., & Valkenburg, P. (2014). Measuring epistemic curiosity in young children. Infant and Child Development. 23, 542-533.

Litman, J.A. (2010). Relationships between measures of I- and D-type curiosity, ambiguity tolerance, and need for closure: An initial test of the wanting-liking model of information- seeking. Personality and Individual Differences, 48, 397-402.

Litman, J.A. (2008). Interest and deprivation dimensions of epistemic curiosity. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 1585–1595.

Litman, J.A. (2006). The COPE inventory: Dimensionality and relationships with approach-and avoidance-motives and positive and negative traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 273-284.

Litman, J.A. & Silvia, P. J. (2006). The latent structure of trait curiosity: Evidence for interest and deprivation curiosity dimensions. Journal of Personality Assessment, 86, 318-328.

Litman, J.A. (2005). Curiosity and the pleasures of learning: Wanting and liking new information. Cognition and Emotion, 19, 793-814

Litman, J.A., Hutchins, T.L., & Russon, R.K. (2005). Epistemic curiosity, feeling-of-knowing, and exploratory behaviour. Cognition and Emotion, 19, 559-582.