Robert Cialdini discusses the excitement of finding new explanations through research.

Question: What inspires you?

Cialdini:    You know, what inspires me is elegance in answering a question in a depth yet certain way so that an experimenter who does a piece of research that not only answers a question but eliminates alternative explanations for why this thing work the way it did, that takes my breath away.  I’ll always be a researcher.  I’m a behavioral scientist.  And when I see that sort of thing, I just commend it.  I write letters to the author of that study, praising them for it and trying to reinforce that kind of behavior.