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Cited by 549

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 109 of the 109 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The Hungry Mind: Intellectual Curiosity Is the Third Pillar of Academic Performance

von Stumm, Sophie, Hell, Benedikt, Chamorro-Premuzic, Tomas·2011·Perspectives on Psychological Science

Abstract

Over the past century, academic performance has become the gatekeeper to institutions of higher education, shaping career paths and individual life trajectories. Accordingly, much psychological research has focused on identifying predictors of academic performance, with intelligence and effort emerging as core determinants. In this article, we propose expanding on the traditional set of predictors by adding a third agency: intellectual curiosity. A series of path models based on a meta-analytically derived correlation matrix showed that (a) intelligence is the single most powerful predictor of academic performance; (b) the effects of intelligence on academic performance are not mediated by personality traits; (c) intelligence, Conscientiousness (as marker of effort), and Typical Intellectual Engagement (as marker of intellectual curiosity) are direct, correlated predictors of academic performance; and (d) the additive predictive effect of the personality traits of intellectual curiosity and effort rival that the influence of intelligence. Our results highlight that a “hungry mind” is a core determinant of individual differences in academic achievement.

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Show all 109 references

Research works printed but not linked: 15

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  2. Berlyne D.E., 1954, British Journal of Psychology, 45, 180
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  4. Costa P.T., 1992, Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI): Professional manual
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  10. Martin G.A., 2008, An introduction to the study of education, 206
  11. Raju N.S., 2003, VG2M: A computer program for conducting validity generalization analysis
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  13. Spearman C.E., 1927, The abilities of man
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  15. Webb E. (1915). Character and intelligence (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Goldsmiths University of London, England.

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Metadata

Authors
von Stumm, S., Hell, B., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T.
Venue
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Published
2011-10-14
Volume
6
Issue
6
Pages
574-588
ISSN
  • 1745-6916 (ISSN-L)
  • 1745-6924
OpenAlex
W2170109199
Cited by
549
References
109
FWCI
21.35
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The Hungry Mind: Intellectual Curiosity Is the Third Pillar of Academic Performance. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1177/1745691611421204
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von Stumm, S., Hell, B., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2011). The Hungry Mind: Intellectual Curiosity Is the Third Pillar of Academic Performance. Perspectives on Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691611421204

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.