Thinking outside the box

It’s a difficult moment when a facilitator brought in to your company to help it change its way of doing things asks you to “think outside the box”. You are probably thinking in your box because it’s a box that you like. You found it a long while ago, everyone else seems to like the box, it’s a bit battered and a bit boring, but still a perfectly serviceable thinking box. It’s tough to change your thinking but if that describes your attitude to your thoughts and way of doing things then a new study might change your world as it has found a very simple way to get your thinking out of that box.

Researchers began a new study with the observation that creative thinking is highly valued. They then observed that metaphors around creative thinking are plentiful. For instance, people talk about “thinking outside the box” or might consider a problem by saying “on the one hand, then on the other hand”. To investigate the relationship between the metaphors we use to describe creativity and creativity itself, the researchers had subjects act out the metaphors.

In one experiment participants were seated either inside or outside a five foot by five foot cardboard box. The environments inside and outside the box were otherwise identical and the box was big enough that there was no sense of claustrophobia. Each person completed a test widely used to measure creativity. Guess what; those people outside the box did much better on creativity than those inside it.

In another test, subjects were asked to join the halves of cut up drink coasters together. This was intended as a representation of “putting two and two together”. People who acted out the “two and two” metaphor subsequently displayed more “convergent thinking”, a component of creative thinking that requires bringing together many possible answers to decide on one that is best. In another study walking freely was found to generate more original ideas than walking in a predetermined line, adding substance to “letting your mind wander”.

It seems then that the metaphors we use to describe creative thought can actually be used to help us think creatively if we act them out. For your next “brain-storming” session then, you might like to take along an umbrella but if your boss or a facilitator asks for a bit of “cross-fertilisation” of ideas, it might be time to draw the line.