59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot (14 page)

In the same way that greenery seems to reduce antisocial
behavior, it also seems to make people more creative. In a series of experiments, Japanese psychologists Seiji Shibata and Naoto Suzuki asked people to carry out various creativity exercises in carefully controlled office environments. In one study some of the offices contained a potted plant that had been carefully positioned in front of, or to the side of, the participant, while other offices were devoid of any greenery. In another study the researchers carefully analyzed the effect of replacing the plant with a similar-size magazine rack. Time and again the researchers discovered that the addition of the potted plant enhanced people’s creativity. The results from these artificial studies appear to stand up to scrutiny in more realistic settings as well. An eight-month study of creativity in the workplace conducted by Robert Ulrich at Texas A&M University showed that adding flowers and plants to an office resulted in a 15 percent increase in ideas from male employees and more flexible solutions to problems from their female counterparts. In another study, researchers discovered that children engage in significantly more creative play when they are in courtyards containing greenery versus comparatively barren outdoor spaces.
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Why should a little nature have these effects?

According to some theorists, the explanation dates back thousands of years. Evolutionary psychologists attempt to explain behavior on the basis of how it might have helped people thrive and survive through generations, and in their opinion, living amid healthy trees and plants might initiate an ancient feeling of calm because it suggests that there will be an abundance of food nearby and eases the worry about where the next meal is coming from. Such pleasant feelings then make people more helpful, happy, and creative.

So is a long country walk or a well-placed potted plant the minimum needed to get your creative juices flowing? Andrew Elliot and his colleagues at the University of Rochester looked
at the relationship between creativity and the nearly subliminal presentation of color.
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The researchers thought that since the color red is commonly associated with a sense of danger and error (think red traffic lights and teachers’ red pens) whereas green is associated with positivity and relaxation (think green traffic lights and nature), the merest suggestion of such colors might hinder or help creativity. They presented participants with a booklet containing some standard anagrams, writing the participant’s code number in the corner of each page of the booklet in either red or green ink. They asked the participants to check that the number on each page was correct and then told them to work through the booklet. Remarkably, even though everyone saw the code numbers for just a few seconds, those who were exposed to the green ink solved about 30 percent more anagrams than those who saw the red ink. The evidence suggests that for creativity you are better off going green.

IN 59 SECONDS

To inspire creative thoughts, place plants and flowers in a room and, if possible, ensure that windows look out on trees and grass, not concrete and steel. Don’t try to fake it. Pictures of waterfalls do not aid innovation, and even high-definition screens showing live camera feeds from natural scenes do not make people feel more relaxed.
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So if you really cannot introduce nature into a space, head for the nearest green spot. Also, when decorating rooms to inspire creative and innovative thinking, avoid red and go for green. The same concept applies if you are trying to get creative juices flowing for others—prime them with the color green (green folders, green chairs, or even your green clothing).

   
MUSICAL CHAIRS

There are two schools of thought relating to group dynamics and creativity. One believes in not changing team membership, arguing that people then feel more comfortable with one another and so are happier to suggest the kinds of weird and wonderful ideas that are the hallmark of creativity. In contrast, the other point of view holds that it is better to generate new patterns of thinking by constantly mixing up the membership.

To find out which position is better, Charlan Nemeth and Margaret Ormiston at the University of California conducted a revealing study.
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In the first part of the experiment, groups of people were asked to think of new ways to solve real problems, such as boosting tourism in the San Francisco Bay Area. Next, the membership of half of those groups was kept constant, while the makeup of the other half of the groups was changed in order to create totally new teams. Those who remained together rated their groups as friendlier and more creative than those that had been asked to move around. However, the newly formed groups generated significantly more ideas, which were later judged to be more creative.

Other work suggests that even one new person can make a difference. In a study conducted by Hoon-Seok Choi and Leigh Thompson, three-person groups were first asked to think of as many uses as possible for a cardboard box.
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Next, the experimenters kept the membership of half of the groups constant and changed just one person in the other half of the groups. When asked to repeat the cardboard-box task, the groups containing one new member devised significantly more creative uses for the box. Further analysis showed that the newcomer had helped increase the creativity of the two original team members.

So, with respect to group creativity, the message is clear: play musical chairs. Even though a team may have worked well together in the past, you can maximize the potential for new and exciting thoughts by changing members as often as possible.

THE POWER OF SMALL

Can small cues have a surprisingly large impact on the way people think? In studies conducted by Ap Dijksterhuis and Ad van Knippenberg at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, participants jotted down a few sentences describing either a typical football hooligan or a typical professor.
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When then asked a series of general-knowledge questions, those who had spent time thinking about a typical football hooligan answered 46 percent of the questions correctly, whereas those who had spent a few moments reflecting on a typical professor attained a mark of 60 percent. Other studies have shown that similar types of priming effects occur in many different situations. Put people in front of computer wallpaper showing dollar symbols, and they behave in a more selfish and unfriendly way, giving less money to charity and sitting farther away from others.
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Give interviewers a cup of iced coffee, and they unknowingly rate interviewees as colder and less pleasant.
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Add a faint smell of cleaning fluid to the air, and people tidy up more thoroughly.
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Put a briefcase on a table during a meeting, and people suddenly become more competitive.
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The evidence points to a little counting for a lot.

Priming can also quickly make people more creative. In a study conducted by psychologist Jens Förster at the International
University Bremen in Germany,
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participants were asked to jot down a few sentences about the behavior, lifestyle, and appearance of a typical punk (chosen because punks were, as the researchers put it, “anarchic and radical”), while others did exactly the same for a typical engineer (“conservative and logical”). Everyone was then given a standard test of creativity. The results revealed that those who had spent just a few seconds thinking about the punk were significantly more creative than those who had put time into thinking about the typical engineer. Without people being aware of it, their ability to be creative was dramatically altered by a few quick and simple thoughts. Interestingly, the effect works only with generic stereotypes, such as punks and engineers. Ask people to spend a few moments thinking about a famous figure, such as Leonardo da Vinci, and more likely than not their creative juices suddenly run dry.
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It seems that if the bar is set too high, people unconsciously compare their own meager skills to those of a genius, become disheartened, and stop trying.

In 2005 Förster conducted a new type of creativity-priming experiment that has real implications for instant change. He speculated that merely glancing at a piece of modern art designed to provoke a sense of unconventionality would unconsciously inspire viewers to become more creative.

To test his idea, Förster asked participants to take a standard creativity task (“think of as many uses for a brick as possible”) while seated in front of one of two specially created art prints. The two prints were each about three feet square, almost identical, and consisted of twelve large crosses against a light green background. In one picture all of the crosses were dark green, while in the other print eleven were dark green and one was yellow. The researchers speculated that the unconscious mind would perceive this single yellow cross as breaking away from its more conservative and conventional
green cousins and that this would encourage more radical and creative thinking. The results were astounding. Even though the participants didn’t consciously notice the picture, those seated in front of the “creative” picture produced significantly more uses for the brick. A panel of experts judged their responses as far more creative. The message is clear: if you want to fast-track a group or an individual to think more creatively, use the power of visual priming.

But other work suggests that instant creativity is not just about sitting in front of a modern art print. It is also about how you use your body.

There is a strong link between anxiety and creativity. When people feel worried, they become very focused, concentrate on the task at hand, become risk-averse, rely on well-established habits and routines, and see the world through less-creative eyes. In contrast, when people feel at ease in a situation, they are more likely to explore new and unusual ways of thinking and behaving, see the bigger picture, take risks, and think and act more creatively.

In view of this link, it should theoretically be possible to increase people’s creativity by making them feel more at ease. Using willing volunteers, researchers have tested a variety of anxiety-reducing procedures, including lengthy relaxation exercises, funny films, and listening to Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons
. The good news is that the results suggest that people have more creative and interesting ideas when they feel comfortable in their surroundings, although the relaxation procedures have proven somewhat time-consuming. With speed always of the essence, a few years ago psychologists Ronald Friedman and Jens Förster created a quick technique for making people feel relaxed. A rewarding side effect was the discovery that their technique also enhanced creativity.
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When you like an object, you sometimes pull it toward
you. Similarly, when you dislike it, you tend to push it away. You have been executing these simple pull-push behaviors from birth, and you probably repeat them on an almost daily basis. As a result, strong associations have become ingrained in your brain, with the act of pulling being associated with a positive feeling and that of pushing being seen as far more negative. Friedman and Förster wondered whether getting people to perform these actions for just a few moments might be enough to trigger the feelings associated with them and therefore affect people’s creative thinking.

They asked willing volunteers to sit at a table and complete standard creativity tasks, such as devising as many uses for everyday objects as possible or solving some classic lateral-thinking puzzles.

Half of the volunteers were asked to place their right hand under the table and gently pull the table toward them, giving their brains a subtle signal that they liked their surroundings. The other half were asked to place their right hand on top of the table and push down, thus unconsciously giving the impression that they felt under threat. The pushes and pulls were gentle enough not to move the table, and none of the volunteers had any idea that pushing and pulling might affect their creativity. While gently pushing or pulling with one hand, they completed the creativity task with the other. Friedman and Förster found that regardless of whether people were generating alternative uses for everyday objects or trying to bring about those all important “aha” moments, those who were pulling scored significantly higher than those who were pushing.

It is a simple but effective technique. It is also not the only piece of research to reveal the strange effects that your body can have on creativity in the brain. Another experiment, conducted by Ronald Friedman and Andrew Elliot at the University
of Rochester, involved asking people to tackle difficult anagrams with their arms either crossed or resting on their thighs.
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In the same way that pushing and pulling is unconsciously associated with liking and disliking, so folding the arms is commonly associated with stubbornness and perseverance. Would this simple act be enough to persuade the participants to spend longer trying to solve the anagrams? Yes. The volunteers with their arms folded struggled nearly twice as long as those with their hands on their thighs. Perhaps more important, because of this they ended up solving significantly more anagrams.