New York Times
February 25, 2012
What ignites the engine of creativity? A popular metaphor in American business urges you to think “outside the box.” Folk wisdom advises that problem-solving is helped by thinking about something “on the one hand” and then “on the other hand.”
Is there any psychological truth to such metaphors for better thinking? Our research suggests that the answer is yes. When people literally — that is, physically — embody these metaphors, they generate more creative ideas for solving problems.
Recent advances in understanding what psychologists call “embodied cognition” indicate a surprisingly direct link between mind and body. It turns out that people draw on their bodily experiences in constructing their social reality. Studies show, for example, that someone holding a warm cup of coffee tends to perceive a stranger as having a “warmer” personality. Likewise when holding something heavy, people see things as more serious and important — more “weighty.”
However, until recently it was not known whether bodily experiences could help in generating new ideas and solutions to problems. Our research, which will be published soon in the journal Psychological Science, discovered that it can.
For example, we asked 102 undergraduates at New York University to complete a task designed to measure innovative thinking. The task required them to generate a word (“tape,” for example) that related to each of three presented clue words (“measure,” “worm” and “video”). Some students were randomly assigned to do this while sitting inside a 125-cubic-foot box that we made of plastic pipe and cardboard. The rest got to sit and think outside (and next to) the box.
During the task we tracked the number of correct responses suggested by the students. We found that those thinking outside the box were significantly more creative: compared with those thinking inside the box, they came up with over 20 percent more creative solutions.
More
Read the Paper
No comments:
Post a Comment