For the insight problems, participants were told that the questions were developed either by a research institute located in California, "around 2,000 miles away" (distant condition), or in Indiana, "2 miles away," (near condition). In a third, control group no information regarding location was mentioned. As expected, participants in the distant condition solved more problems than participants in the proximal condition and in the control condition. Because the problems seemed farther away, they were easier to solve.
This pair of studies suggests that even minimal cues of psychological distance can make us more creative. Although the geographical origin of the various tasks was completely irrelevant – it shouldn’t have mattered where the questions came from – simply telling subjects that they came from somewhere far away led to more creative thoughts.
These results build on previous studies which demonstrated that distancing in time – projecting an event into the remote future - and assuming an event to be less likely (that is, distancing on the probability dimension) can also enhance creativity. In a series of experiments that examined how temporal distance affects performance on various insight and creativity tasks, participants were first asked to imagine their lives a year later (distant future) or the next day (near future), and then to imagine working on a task on that day in the future. Participants who imagined a distant future day solved more insight problems than participants who imagined a near future day. They also performed better on visual insight tasks, which required detecting coherent images in "noisy" visual input, as well as on creative generation tasks (e.g., listing ways to improve the look of a room). Similar evidence has been found for probability. Participants were more successful at solving sample items from a visual insight task when they believed they were unlikely, as opposed to likely, to encounter the full task.
This research has important practical implications. It suggests that there are several simple steps we can all take to increase creativity, such as traveling to faraway places (or even just thinking about such places), thinking about the distant future, communicating with people who are dissimilar to us, and considering unlikely alternatives to reality. Perhaps the modern environment, with its increased access to people, sights, music, and food from faraway places, helps us become more creative not only by exposing us to a variety of styles and ideas, but also by allowing us to think more abstractly. So the next time you’re stuck on a problem that seems impossible don’t give up. Instead, try to gain a little psychological distance, and pretend the problem came from somewhere very far away.
Are you a scientist? Have you recently read a peer-reviewed paper that you want to write about? Then contact Mind Matters editor Jonah Lehrer, the science writer behind the blog The Frontal Cortex and the book Proust Was a Neuroscientist. His latest book is How We Decide.
See what we're tweeting about
44 Comments
Add CommentThis seems reasonable: the farther away and more into the future or distant past the better. I discovered science fiction at age 13 (in 1949, the onset of the high quality "silver age" of sci-fi). I immediately was addicted. It's been a lifelong love, and it very quickly led me to read everything I could find on astronomy, physics, biology, history, politics, evolution, and higher math. I learned library research techniques to pursue these new interests. Within a few months I was creating astronomical art and sharpening my drawing skills in general, visualizing Hohmann orbits to travel to nearby planets, composing an opera based on Heinlein's "The Green Hills of Earth", and, at 14, writing a (non sci-fi) novelette . At 73 I still enjoy dragging my high school creativity out, reading it, looking at the graphics, going over my equations for a fuel efficient trip to and from Mars, and playing my own music on the piano. I ranged far beyond science and fiction into classical music appreciation, art history, folk music, African studies, comparative religion, European prehistory, languages, costume design and sewing, choir singing--anything and everything seemed utterly fascinating! I found like minded friends. That was the year the world was in rainbow colors, I came bouncingly alive, and A's in school reflected my awakened mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course there ARE hazards. (Thinking of corn ethanol would be a hazardous bit of creativity, at least to someone like me who worked for over 14 years in alternate energy and considers ethanol a net negative energy source.) In my teens there were plenty of pitfalls. I fell head over heels for Velikovsky--loved all those footnotes--, Donnelly's ATLANTIS, Churchward's MU, Charles Fort's LO!, UFO writers, ESP and spoon-bending promoters, the Friends of Richard III, and numerous other creative, imaginative, well-meaning but slightly warped enthusiasts. Despite the promotion of Dianetics by certain sci-fi editors, I didn't go for that one--and skeptical future history writers like L. Sprague de Camp were the ones who got me out of my cultish obsessions after a couple of years. But I must say that dabbling in them was fun, for a while.
I got my son into sci-fi (and reading MAD magazine to keep him skeptical) at an early age. Wouldn't you know--he joined the Fortean Society at age 16, not knowing I had. No better way to raise a creative kid than science fiction! Now I have a 6-year-old granddaughter, already bright, and hope that some day she thinks of me as her Auntie Mame.
Maybe I should have read more carefully, but this article seems rather trivial. It appears they're saying that creativity is caused by creativity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCLT? This must have elaborated after my time as a psychology student. We were more interested in operant conditioning way back then. Remember B.F. Skinner? I suggest that creativity has much to do with economics... more simply neediness. If you need something and your neural functions can handle the process, then the solution to the problem (e.g. creativity) will arise.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImagining distant things, (or future things)... will free your psyche from thinking in probabilistic manner. That's where the creativity lie.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe writer should also mention those, and other theory of creativity, such as the "latent inhibition" theory.
Proximity creates pressure, as if there may be direct consequences for getting it wrong, so to speak. Distance creates a freedom and lack of inhibition since, after all, failure falls on the shoulders of another. I find it interesting that this is the same concept of an armchair quarterback who can "obviously" make better better decisions from the comfort of his living room than the palyer on the field. No pressure! No loss! More freedom to consider low percentage options!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting comments... I don't think the article tried to (or could) list ALL conditions that increase creativity, but was just showing research on ONE way of increasing creativity. Some parts of the article seemed to make immediate sense (not as Josh Romm stated that "creativity is caused by creativity" but that exposure to something distant from oneself can help oneself generate creativity) while others were a big surprise (just knowing that a problem was created by folks in California while I live in Indiana makes me more creatively insightful!!!)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder how well the experiments were controlled in terms of the individuals' initial creativity, and also if they did a reverse experiment for people in California. Is it possible that California itself induced more creativity than Indiana (hehe)?
This sounds interesting!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is much needed research. There are tons of creativity techniques, but very, very few have been rigorously studied or empirically validated. There is a need for a sound theoretical foundation for explaining why various techniques work -- or if they work at all, and in what fashion. The same research would be useful for the design of new creativity techniques that match the specific needs for ideas or solutions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHalf a century ago, Herbert Simon and Allen Newell conducted many experiments on problem solving. Some of their experiments demonstrated how the language used for framing a problem or the context in which the problem is nominally situated can drastically alter the problem solver's perception of its difficulty (and thereby help or hinder problem solving). The present research is at least conceptually related to those of Newell and Simon. It's rather odd that the ball got dropped somewhere along the way.
One problem with research of this kind is the difficulty involved in controlling potential confounding variables. But kudos to the research, and hope to see more research of this kind. Murli
This is much needed research. There are tons of creativity techniques, but very, very few have been rigorously studied or empirically validated. There is a need for a sound theoretical foundation for explaining why various techniques work -- or if they work at all, and in what fashion. The same research would be useful for the design of new creativity techniques that match the specific needs for ideas or solutions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHalf a century ago, Herbert Simon and Allen Newell conducted many experiments on problem solving. Some of their experiments demonstrated how the language used for framing a problem or the context in which the problem is nominally situated can drastically alter the problem solver's perception of its difficulty (and thereby help or hinder problem solving). The present research is at least conceptually related to those of Newell and Simon. It's rather odd that the ball got dropped somewhere along the way.
One problem with research of this kind is the difficulty involved in controlling potential confounding variables. But kudos to the research, and hope to see more research of this kind. Murli
I meant "kudos to the researchERS". Oh well ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisedp05mab at 05:04 AM wrote : Is it possible that California itself induced more creativity than Indiana (hehe)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCertainly when I visit LA and hang out with my highly creative family and friends there, the air buzzes with stimulating talk and ideas - it's contagious and everybody is at it - music, writing, performing, practicing!!
I have a degree in Psychology and have always been interested in creative behavior, particularly when I raised my four children. I specifically tried to create conditions to enhance their creativity - this seems to have paid off in adulthood. Although they all went on to study academic subjects at leading universities, today three our of the four are freelance creatives - 2 singer/songwriters and a screenplay/TV writer.
As for this current research, it seems to me that we should be told more about the sample groups. If they are mainly academics [students], they are likely to come from a population of participants with above average intelligence - this may well impact their creative ability.
Finally I would also be interested to know if anyone has experienced that eureka moment while coming out of a dream?
@Annaki - Eureka moment hasn't happened to me coming out of a dream but certainly from state of distraction, a reverie. Suddenly the whole answer is clearly laid out in front of me. When I look back, I'm never clear as to how it all developed, and in fact, the next day, I am astonished by the inner elegance of the answer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisState of distraction = psychological distance . . . eureka!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut let's not forget that there are other factors involved in the creative process; for example 'blue sky' thinking skills, the confidence to try non-conformist solutions or take a risk and make unusual suggestions without fear or embarrassment of feeling a failure. I believe such skills can be developed during childhood and adolescence in a close knit creatively challenging household. Maybe close knit creative households intrisically afford psychological distance?
P.S. I love the phrase 'inner elegance of the answer'.
I do not think I'm here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTherefore, I am.
When every I have a problem I use a trick Willie Nelson taught me. I make my problem a physical object and I place it in a black trunk with a huge padlock on it. Now my problem is somewhere else and I can stop thinking about it. Locked up and far away, my mind stops thinking about it. I can sleep.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think this is the same as making my problem "Distance" from me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps this is why travel stimulates creativity. Once you are home, everything that was in the here-and-now is there-and-then, or imaginary. All the exotic things seem on journeys then dance in our minds and let us see the immediate present in a new way.
OR, - without imagining anything, - have a session with acupuncture. Ideas start popping like firecrackers, - impossible to grab them all ;o)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was hoping the authors would explain WHY it works this way, but jacpc got it right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNow, can it be implemented at the workplace? e.g., can a project manager direct his team this way when facing a problem? Or can it lead to adverse effects, such as when the problem looks distant, it doesn't seem urgent/important enough to spend the right amount of mental effort on it (rationally thinking), so it gets poorer solutions too. of course, it's not true for all employees.
I have experienced this myself. I develop business applications for manufacturers and have often found that because I abstract their business processes into collections of "objects" that interact, I am able to resolve business problems that my clients had been unable to. Often I have struggled to explain why certain things that seem to be completely different from one another to my client can be viewed as virtually the same things with the change of only one property.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMuch of my understanding of science has come from trying to represent certain concepts in code. That's when I have my "aha" moment, when I run my model and it does what the system I am modelling is doing. That's when I "get it".
Read about Igor Stravinsky - he said something along the lines of "when I work hard, it becomes easier to write" I'm assuming that he ment that his working hard meant being busy composing - thus creativity becomes easier the more it is used.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn life coaching, when a client feels stuck, we might ask the powerful questions, "In 5 years, if you were to have solved this problem well, what would you have done?" or "Imagine down the road, your best possible solution. What actions would you have committed to and accomplished to make that solution doable?" or "What if you knew you had choices?" or "What if in the future you had no constraints, no limitations, no fear, and / no avoidance? If you were empowered with expansive, no-limit solutions. What would this look like?" As the brainstorming ideas are hypothesized as years down the road, the pressure is momentarily off. The fear may abate. Enthusiasm, clarity, focus, peace, and self-confident ideas may bubble up. And what if creativity was seen as the vehicle for positivity? Opportunities for growth, like planting a garden, take time to erupt. A great article. Thanks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[not reading the comments above] I believe a possible confound may be the added mental stimulus conferred by exposing a student to a word "California", richly associated with interesting vehicles like wind schooners, yachts, and rollerblades. Students in California given this test may be at a loss challenged with a study presented from "Indiana", adding 'tractor' perhaps to their list but not scoring any higher than other Californians...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn Japanese ink painting there is a kind of mantra that goes" It is not I that am doing this." This is a kind of distancing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisComputer-/communication networks are the most dangerous endeavor mankind has
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisbegun so far.
It is not very difficult for unauthorized non/humans to read, create, modify
and delete data on them. Traditional information may be electronically
contaminated. Very bad further effect: this is a creativity killer.
i don't know why you scientists keep trying to left brain a right brain activity - ask an artist - these are no new ideas to us. We do this naturally -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisan arist
We are taught to think outside of the box. However, we still allow the shape of the box to shape our thoughts. Lateral thinking is a gift that must be developed and exersized.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm glad someone mentioned ethanol is net negative. It costs more to produce and pollutes more than gas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe article provides scientific confirmation for an effect that creativity practitioners have been aware of for a long time: that it is helpful to look for ideas "over there", rather than "here". there exist a large number of ideation techniques that utilize this effect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisone example of such a technique is the "CIA method", which was supposedly used by the CIA during the cold war. here, the CIA participants were told "the KGB has already found a solution to this problem, now we need to find it too." by presenting the problem as already having been solved at a large psychological distance, it made it easier to come up with new ideas.
when working with clients on innovation projects, we regularly use different kinds of "psychological distancing" like the CIA method.
my personal explanation is that as long people associate the problem with themselves, they feel limited by what they believe is or is not possible (for themselves) and of course also by professional myopia. by asking "how would darth vader solve this problem?" or "how will this problem be solved 10 years in the future?", you can free people from this (self-imposed) mental limitations.
Graham Horton
www.zephram.de
Creativity is also an idea that we can see in the future that works, but we are hesitant to create it due to the fact that there are problematic path that hinders our goal either financially or affraid of loosing it and or someone will steal these valuable ideas from you. There is no more guarantee that you can keep your valuable inventions, unless you have the means to finance and secure them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith this point in mind, I'm very eager to know if one can feign psychological distance. If I have a project that is due tomorrow, and that I need to submit to a superior whom I favor, can I simply pretend it isn't due for another week, and I have to submit it to a stranger?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery eager to hear what any experts might have to say on this. Thanks in advance.
This is just a stupid article trying to let non-creative people believe that somehow creativity can be nurtured. Sorry, it cannot be. You either are creative or you are not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn my opinion, the increases of creativity do not so much come from the psychological distance but from freedom from local oppression. When looking at a problem nearby, there are many known contraints that stifle creativing, such as what the local labor union might object to in the solution - which restraint is absent when viewed from a distance. A good rule in brainstorming sessions is: No one can comment on any novel suggestion made. That rule frees the mind by reducing negative thoughts about what your peer may think of this or that crazy idea. A major factor stifling creativity is what your neighbor might think or what contraints your local situation puts upon the problem. It is the breaking of proximate restraints that frees the mind to explode with creativity. Creative people are often renegades who don't give a damn what other people think. With such an iconoclastic attitude towards the restraints arising from one's stifling environment and traditions, the artist doesn't have to leave their home to find true freedom of thought and expression.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a technique to induce distance which is... sorry... more concrete than "thinking about it far away." Specifically, team creativity can be severely limited by the inability to interchange fragmentary concepts... to communicate to build he solutions. The limit may be caused by, literally, not having the words to describe the concept fragment -- no one has ever defined a word to describe Concept X. More usually, the inability to communicate is caused by the subtly different preconceived notions each of the participants has about a given word. This becomes especially acute where the team is heterogeneous, made up, say, of people from Engineering, Marketing, Finance, and so on... where each team member is affected by the jargon of his/her function.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo how to get around this? How do you spur TEAM creativity? The answer is to invent a language and/or transform the problem metaphorically. I was on a team of telecom professionals once and we had horrible arguments caused by differences in definitions of words like "link" and "line" and "switch." One day, one of my colleagues suggested that we talk about cattle instead. We defined cows, and then sub-divided these into Jerseys, Holsteins, buffalos, etc. And we made rapid progress, because cows are pretty dang distant from telecom switching theory! Only when we were done did we translate our cow model back to "regular" words.
So, while the article discusses individual creativity, one should also think about team creativity. There are some very concrete things you can do in a team.
I would have to prescribe to the notion that our creativity has less to do with psychological distance, and more to do with ideal cognitive conditions. Variables including anxiety, stress, and our inabilities to properly contextualize ensuing problems that need creativity to solve, are all hindrances to our creativity. It just so happens that our mind falsely believes that either psychological or physical distance, has a relieving or enhancing effect on our creativity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome 50 years ago Bill Gordon and George Prince developed a technique they called Synectics to enhance group creativity. This article appears to be dealing with the same basic concept - psychological distance. Anecdotally, I have practiced and taught these techniques for 40 years and can vouch for their effectiveness. As one of the comments indicates, there are many aspects to creativity and this article addresses one area.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs to the naysayers -- the evidence is overwhelming that creativity can be increased by proper training. Unquestionably some people are more creative than others, but virtually all can improve their creative skills.
I applaud the efforts to understand the creative processes better. As Gordon and Prince indicated, undertsanding the creative process can itself increase creativity. We must continue to uncover the underlying mechanisms that drive this process.
I wonder if the process of psychological distance happens more in the "right brain" and we are using autobiographical memory and concrete thinking with less psychological distance, hence using the "left brain?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismbohls@yahoo.com
This matter of psychological distance is one I experience when I tackle a problem in a sort of daydream in which, instead of directly solving the problem, I envision myself as telling others how I solved it. It works beautifully.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPossibly creativity can be taught. From childhood our kids were taught to change advertising jingles to original ones or reverse- the toothpaste took away the enamel and so on. Lack of creativity comes from fear of being criticized or found wrong. Many inventions from USA in the 19th century came because novel thinking was allowed vs other lands where you must follow "traditional ways." I think "allowing" creative thinking is more important than "distance thinking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat about the influence of subconsciousness. Could it be true that phsychological distance causes a shift from conscious to unconscious systems, which has far more capacity to solve complex problems?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting discovery. As per the studies, when the problem seems far away (in any dimension), we can think creatively. Consider a situation in which we know the problem is immediate but we have to imagine that it's far away in order solve it creatively - so, it all depends on how well we can imagine. We might say to ourselves that the problem doesn't affect us, but it might be without conviction. What happens then? What I mean to say is, does merely thinking the problem as far away work, or do we have to truly believe that it is so in order to solve it creatively?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe underlying principle here is that, to solve a problem, it helps to put it in a different frame from the one you started with. Distancing is one way to do that, but you could just as well bring it super close (like viewing under a microscope), or make it brighter or darker, larger or smaller, more or less colorful, etc. There are an almost infinite number of ways to do it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@NeuroShft
The limit of possible mediums to increase creativity is only limited by your imagination.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article is utter bs. Don't believe it guys.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThinking something is not likely to happen, thinking it is happening far away, thinking it is happening in the distant future; all of these things distance us from the problem. Distance makes us less likely to think these problems are going to have a negative effect on us. If we can take our own well-being out of the picture there is less pressure to come up with an immediate and complete solution. Therefore, we can take the time to present solutions that may not seem entirely logical or plausible without fear of immediate repercussions. Considering all ideas no matter how feasible they seem is an important part of the creative process, because it often leads to finding more concrete solutions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this