[acb-hsp] Why Weird Experiences Boost Creativity

[peter altschul]

Why Weird Experiences Boost Creativity
  September 10, 2012
  Creative people think differently.  But why? There is no magic 
bullet or single pill.  We all have the potential for creativity, 
but there are so many different triggers that can broaden our 
minds, inspire, and motivate.  Of course, there are just as many 
triggers that can shut down our minds.  Since creativity is so 
important for individual well-being and societal innovation, it's 
important that we systematically pull the right triggers.
  A crucial trigger is the experience of unusual and unexpected 
events.  These events can take many different forms, ranging from 
the loss a parent to living abroad.  But one need not experience 
any of these specific events to think more creatively.  In a 
recent paper in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Simone 
Ritter and colleagues propose that any life experience, from the 
traumatic to the joyful, can lead to flexibility and creativity 
as long as it diversifies your experiences and pushes you outside 
your normal thought patterns.
  To test their idea, the researchers put people in a virtual 
reality world where participants took a virtual three-minute 
stroll through the university cafeteria, and during the course of 
their walk experienced weird events that violated the laws of 
physics.  In one event, as people walked closer to a suitcase 
standing on a table, the size of the suitcase decreased, but as 
they walked away, its size increased.  In another event, people 
were made to feel as though they were walking faster than they 
really were, and in a third event, as people walked toward a 
table, a toy car inched closer to a bottle, but when the car 
actually hit the bottle, instead of falling to the ground it 
slowly moved upwards!
  They also had people take a test of cognitive flexibility where 
they were required to come up with as many ideas as possible to 
the question "What makes sound?" Those who generated a greater 
variety of categories were scored as more cognitively flexible.  
Those who were actively engaged in the weird virtual-reality 
world scored higher on the test of cognitive flexibility than a 
group of people who engaged in a normal version of the virtual 
world, and higher than a group of people who just watched a film 
showing the unexpected events.  They also found that their 
results couldn't be explained by differences in positive or 
negative emotion.
  In a second experiment they asked participants to prepare a 
sandwich with butter and chocolate chips (apparently, this is a 
breakfast delicacy in the Netherlands, where the study was 
conducted).  Some people were told to prepare the sandwich in an 
unusual order, first putting chocolate chips on a dish, then 
buttering the bread, and then placing the bread 
buttered-side-down on the dish with the chocolate chips.  They 
had another group make the sandwich in the usual order, and 
another group just watched a video of a person making the 
sandwich in either the unusual way or the usual way.  Again, 
people who actively made the sandwich in the unusual order scored 
highest in cognitive flexibility compared with the other groups, 
and the results couldn't be explained by differences in positive 
or negative emotion.
  These results are provocative and have some important 
implications.  While prior research shows that early traumatic 
life experiences can be conducive to creativity, thankfully it's 
not necessary to lose a parent or experience a physical illness 
to see the world differently.  The core feature is actively 
experiencing a violation of how things are supposed to happen.  
The results help explain why periods of immigration often precede 
extraordinary periods of creative achievement: Immigrants bring 
their own customs and ideas to a new environment, diversifying 
experiences for everyone.
  These results also suggest that if you want to get into a 
creative mindset, do your normal routine in a completely 
different way.  Write with your other hand.  Moonwalk backwards 
on your way to work.  Eat something new for lunch.  Smile at 
strangers.  Be weird.  With your brain re-shuffled, you'll be in 
a better position to be creative.