Curiosity is a fundamental driver of information-seeking, yet it remains understudied, particularly in its applications to communication. This dissertation investigated the environmental and biological factors that shape our curiosity for new information across three studies. Study 1 used a value-based framework on curiosity and tested the extent to which social signals of information value affected curiosity and curiosity-facilitated memory. Participants’ curiosity was significantly higher towards information associated with social signals communicating high information value, and significantly lower towards information associated with social signals communicating low information value, compared to information not associated with social value signals. When people felt more curious about the information, they were also more likely to remember the information. This curiosity-memory association was not undermined by the presence of social signals of information value. Study 2 incorporated curiosity-eliciting techniques, including social signals, into health communication messages designed to reduce nicotine-related false beliefs among three priority populations: Black/African American adults, rural adults, and young adults who smoke. Results showed that targeted messages leveraging curiosity countered nicotine false beliefs compared to standard messages or no message exposure for all three groups. Study 3 shifted focus to curiosity as a trait by investigating how trait deprivation curiosity, the extent to which one’s information-seeking is motivated to overcome the feeling of being deprived of knowledge, was associated with resting-state functional connectivity of regions involved in incentive processing and cognitive control. This study found limited support for a tri-system network neuroscience approach to deprivation curiosity. Taken together, this dissertation builds upon the growing body of knowledge on curiosity within social, health, and network neuroscience contexts, offering theoretical and practical applications of curiosity in communication research.