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UCSB Library is pleased to present Jonathan Schooler (Psychological and Brain Sciences) in the Pacific Views: Library Speaker Series for Spring 2025. This event is in conjunction with the UCSB Reads 2025 book The Book of Delights: Essays by Ross Gay, a genre-defying collection of short lyrical essays that celebrate the small, ordinary wonders in the world around us.

Children routinely experience wonder in everyday events, however, as we get older we can lose that childlike curiosity, and the pleasures that it affords. In this talk, Schooler will describe a smartphone-based intervention that his lab has been developing to promote curiosity through daily behavioral activities and “mindful curiosity” practices, which promote an inquiring stance towards everyday experiences.

Schooler’s preliminary research results reveal that app users showed significant increases in perceptual curiosity, meaning in life, and creative behaviors, presence of meaning, mindful awareness, and reduced boredom proneness. These findings suggest that curiosity and its benefits can be cultivated through targeted interventions, particularly when combining attitudinal and behavioral strategies.

Jonathan Schooler is a Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at UCSB, Director of UCSB’s Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential, and Acting Director of the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind. His research intersects philosophy and psychology, including the relationship between mindfulness and mind-wandering, theories of consciousness, the nature of creativity, and the impact of art on the mind.

Schooler’s research has been featured on television shows including BBC Horizon and Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman, as well as in print media including the New York Times, the New Yorker, and Nature Magazine. With over 250 publications and more than 40,000 citations he is a five-time recipient of the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science™ Highly Cited Researcher Award and is ranked by Academicinfluence.com among the 100 most influential cognitive psychologists.

Schooler’s approximately 45-minute presentation will be followed by a Q&A session.

This event may be photographed or recorded.

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