Weak, but consistent data for the positive impact of curiosity

From Wikipedia traffic per capita by country [OC] from Data Is Beautiful.

Click to enlarge.

Interesting though with definitional constraints. This is the number of Wikipedia pages accessed per month per capita of internet users in each country. Countries with very low internet usage may still have a high score if those few users are using it intensively. See the comments for all the comments about the shortcomings of this particular graph in terms of how it can be interpreted.

Still, it gives a hint at an issue I have long been mulling. IQ is one thing and it certainly has some useful forecasting properties. On the other hand, it is not near perfect. One of the additional explanatory variables for positive life outcomes is what psychologists variously refer to as grit, perseverance, self-control, self-discipline or diligence. IQ and Perseverance together explain much of the variance between any two individuals, but still not all.

I have often wondered, and never seen much research addressing the question, as to the contribution of intense curiosity in life outcomes. This is particularly relevant to my interests regarding the degree to which the habit of enthusiastic reading may or may not contribute to good life outcomes. My question specifically is whether those individuals, ceteris paribus, who are actively curious might not also have better life outcomes. The logical case flows from curiosity leads to greater acquisition of knowledge, leads to enhanced perception and insight, leads improved problem solving, leads to improved productivity, leads to enhanced life outcomes. But is it true?

I don't know, but this chart, for all its weakness, is consistent with that argument. Without even correcting for wikipedia views per total population (versus just the population of internet users) there is a reasonably positive correlation (I haven't run the numbers but it looks like 0.5-0.7 perhaps) between Wikipedia accessing (i.e. curiosity) and any of a number of crude measures of well-being such as PPP GDP per Capita, PPP Wealth per Capita, Longevity, Average Years of education attainment, etc.

Its not good data but it is supportive of the hypothesis in that it does not refute the conclusion.