How good are you at thinking outside the box?
If you didn’t know, one of the classic creativity studies was carried out almost 70 years ago by the Gestalt psychologist Karl Dunker (1945). As shown in the image to left, Duncker’s study involved giving his subjects a candle, a box of tacks and some matches – the subject was then asked to find a way to attach the candle to a wall.
The solution obviously involves a little creativity, because you have to use the materials in reasonably novel ways; and the matches don’t actually turn out to be any use at all.
One of the things that the study illustrates is that sometimes to solve a problem you need to take a step back and try to look at your situation from a different perspective. (Try googling functional fixedness.)
But what’s also interesting are the factors that can affect how well people perform on the test. Across several studies, participants in whom positive affect had been induced significantly outperformed control participants (Greene & Noice, 1988; Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987), which shows that positive affect can increase performance on creative problem solving.
Another recent study has shown that people who have lived overseas tend to respond to the test more creatively (Maddux, 2009) – maybe this is because they’ve learned to recognise how different things can have completely different meanings in different contexts.
So I guess if you want to be a little more creative, try going to live in Madagascar and making sure you stay cheerful! Or perhaps just take workplace wellness seriously, and know that a happy workforce is a creative workforce – and isn’t that what you want for your business?
References:
Duncker, K. (1945). On problem solving. Psychological Monographs, 58(5), 270.
Greene, T. R., & Noice, H. (1988). Influence of positive affect upon creative thinking and problem solving in children. Psychological Reports, 63, 895-898.
Isen, A. M., Daubman, K. A., & Nowicki, G. P. (1987). Positive affect facilitates creative problem solving. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 1122-1131.
Maddux, William W. (2009) Cultural borders and mental barriers: The relationship between living abroad and creativity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(5), 1047-1061.