Quantcast
ZME Science
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
    Menu
    Natural Sciences
    Health
    History & Humanities
    Space & Astronomy
    Technology
    Culture
    Resources
    Natural Sciences

    Physics

    • Matter and Energy
    • Quantum Mechanics
    • Thermodynamics

    Chemistry

    • Periodic Table
    • Applied Chemistry
    • Materials
    • Physical Chemistry

    Biology

    • Anatomy
    • Biochemistry
    • Ecology
    • Genetics
    • Microbiology
    • Plants and Fungi

    Geology and Paleontology

    • Planet Earth
    • Earth Dynamics
    • Rocks and Minerals
    • Volcanoes
    • Dinosaurs
    • Fossils

    Animals

    • Mammals
    • Birds
    • Fish
    • Reptiles
    • Amphibians
    • Invertebrates
    • Pets
    • Conservation
    • Animals Facts

    Climate and Weather

    • Climate Change
    • Weather and Atmosphere

    Geography

    Mathematics

    Health
    • Drugs
    • Diseases and Conditions
    • Human Body
    • Mind and Brain
    • Food and Nutrition
    • Wellness
    History & Humanities
    • Anthropology
    • Archaeology
    • Economics
    • History
    • People
    • Sociology
    Space & Astronomy
    • The Solar System
    • The Sun
    • The Moon
    • Planets
    • Asteroids, Meteors and Comets
    • Astronomy
    • Astrophysics
    • Cosmology
    • Exoplanets and Alien Life
    • Spaceflight and Exploration
    Technology
    • Computer Science & IT
    • Engineering
    • Inventions
    • Sustainability
    • Renewable Energy
    • Green Living
    Culture
    • Culture and Society
    • Bizarre Stories
    • Lifestyle
    • Art and Music
    • Gaming
    • Books
    • Movies and Shows
    Resources
    • How To
    • Science Careers
    • Metascience
    • Fringe Science
    • Science Experiments
    • School and Study
    • Natural Sciences
    • Health
    • History and Humanities
    • Space & Astronomy
    • Culture
    • Technology
    • Resources
  • Reviews
  • More
    • Agriculture
    • Anthropology
    • Biology
    • Chemistry
    • Electronics
    • Geology
    • History
    • Mathematics
    • Nanotechnology
    • Economics
    • Paleontology
    • Physics
    • Psychology
    • Robotics
  • About Us
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

No Result
View All Result
ZME Science

Home → Science

Creativity hinges on churning as many ideas out as possible — then taking a break

It doesn't matter if your ideas suck -- get more of them!

Alexandru Micu by Alexandru Micu
March 22, 2019
in Mind & Brain, News, Psychology, Science

Being creative is as simple as letting yourself come up with ideas — and then walking away for a while.

Brushes.
Image credits Pixabay.

New research from The University of Texas (UT) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) says that employers looking for more creative employees should encourage them to produce a wealth of ideas — even mediocre ones — and then have them take an “incubation period.”

Take a breather

“Creativity is not instantaneous, but if incentives promote enough ideas as seeds for thought, creativity eventually emerges,” said Steven Kachelmeier, the Randal B. McDonald Chair in Accounting at Texas McCombs and co-author of the study in the Accounting Review.

When people are rewarded for simply producing ideas, no matter if they’re good or bad, they end up producing more and more creative ideas, the paper reports. If your end goal is to foster creativity, then this is a much better approach than paying people based on the quality of their ideas (or not giving out any pay incentives at all). Another important requirement is to give these ideas time to grow, the team adds. All the participants involved in this study stepped away from the brainstorming part of the task for a while and returned to it at a later date. This approach — combining mass idea generation with a rest period — results in much more creative productivity than when either of the two strategies is used in the study.

The research consisted of two experiments. In the first phase, participants were asked to create rebus puzzles — riddles where words, phrases or sayings are represented using a combination of images and letters. Some participants were offered pay based on the number of ideas they generated; others, only for ideas that met a certain standard for creativity. Finally, the control group was paid a fixed wage of $25, regardless of the quantity or quality of the puzzle ideas they generated.

In the early stages of the study, both incentivized groups actually performed worse than the control (in measures of creativity as judged by an independent panel). However, in a subsequent return to this task (10 days after the first one), those in the pay-per-idea group had “a distinct creativity advantage,” the team reports, and outperformed the other participants in both quality and quantity of ideas produced.

The group with a combination of mass idea generation with a rest period outperformed either of the other two groups using these strategies in isolation. The striking surge in efficiency exhibited by the first group suggests that having an incubation period after an initial brainstorming step is key to improving creativity, the researchers said.

Exactly how much time this rest period should take was the focus point of the second experiment. Here, the team paid half the participants a fixed amount (these were the controls) and half for the number of ideas they produced. As before, the pay-for-quantity participants yielded more, but not better, initial ideas than the fixed-pay group. However, after a quiet, 20-minute walk around campus, they produced more and better quality puzzles than the control group.

“You need to rest, take a break and detach yourself — even if that detachment is just 20 minutes,” Kachelmeier said.

“The recipe for creativity is try — and get frustrated because it’s not going to happen. Relax, sit back, and then it happens.”

The paper “Incentivizing the Creative Process: From Initial Quantity to Eventual Creativity” has been published in the journal Accounting Review.

Was this helpful?


Thanks for your feedback!

Related posts:
  1. Taking a walk encourages creativity more than sitting
  2. Life satisfaction hinges not on what you do — but who you do it with
  3. Science may finally explain why some of the best ideas come while taking a shower
  4. Georgetown University team found you can literally zap creativity into your brain
  5. Nano-machines made from DNA look like molecule-size hinges
Tags: creativityideas

ADVERTISEMENT
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • More
  • About Us

© 2007-2021 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Environment
  • Health
  • Future
  • Space
  • Features
    • Natural Sciences
    • Health
    • History and Humanities
    • Space & Astronomy
    • Culture
    • Technology
    • Resources
  • Reviews
  • More
    • Agriculture
    • Anthropology
    • Biology
    • Chemistry
    • Electronics
    • Geology
    • History
    • Mathematics
    • Nanotechnology
    • Economics
    • Paleontology
    • Physics
    • Psychology
    • Robotics
  • About Us
    • About
    • The Team
    • Advertise
    • Contribute
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact

© 2007-2021 ZME Science - Not exactly rocket science. All Rights Reserved.

Don’t you want to get smarter every day?

YES, sign me up!

Over 35,000 subscribers can’t be wrong. Don’t worry, we never spam. By signing up you agree to our privacy policy.

✕
ZME Science News

FREE
VIEW