I was recently asked this question and here is my answer:

There are many reasons we ask questions.

Curiosity is only one of them.

We might want to:

  • Connect with someone else;
  • Control them;
  • Disempower them;
  • Empower them……

The question may also be about us – to show:

  • How clever or erudite we are;
  • How caring we are;
  • How humble we are.

Questions are therefore a form of signal.

When someone asks me a question my thinking typically goes to:

  • Why are they asking me this question?
  • What is there real question?
  • What is the intent?
  • What is the question signalling?
  • What does the question assume?

We are also curious in non-verbal ways. Personally, the bulk of my curiosity is non-verbal.

Those questions asked out of curiosity are therefore simply a subset of our curiosity.