The pleasure of thinking in human development

Observing children and scientists clearly suggests that people may experience pleasure in thinking. Surprisingly, pleasure is rarely addressed in developmental psychology. The argument of the paper is that pleasure of thinking may play an important role in learning and development; it draws on secondary analysis of existing studies and theoretical work to ground this proposition. The paper first draws on classical observations of young children to highlight five modalities of pleasure in thinking: curiosity, functional pleasure, discovery, dialogical pleasure, and a meta-pleasure. It then examines the becoming of these pleasures during the school years, highlighting the conditions for these pleasures to develop. The paper then suggests that such pleasure can be pursued and cultivated during adulthood. Theoretical and empirical implications are finally highlighted.