Research has shown that many types of creativity require abstract thought. And thinking of events in the future causes people to think more abstractly.
So researchers set up several experiments to answer the question “Does thinking about the future improve creativity?”
Here’s what they did in one experiment.
They divided participants into two groups. One group was asked to think about their lives one year from now to get them to think about the future. The other group was asked to think about their lives tomorrow, to get them thinking close to the present.
Both groups were given three insight problems to solve commonly used to measure creativity. Here’s an example of one of the insight problems.
A prisoner was attempting to escape from a tower. He found a rope in his cell that was half as long enough to permit him to reach the ground safely. He divided the rope in half, tied the two parts together, and escaped. How could he have done this? [Solution given at the end of this post.]
Those participants that imagined their lives a year from now solved a lot more problems than those that thought about the next day.
So thinking about the future did improve abstract thinking and creativity.
It’s also important to note that in follow up experiments they gave participants creative tasks and analytical tasks. And people who thought about their lives a year ahead did worse than those who thought ahead only 24 hours.
So when facing a creative problem that involves abstract thinking, spend some time thinking about the future. But when you’re deep in analysis think about the present.
So how will you use these ideas today? Let me know in the comments below.
[Solution: He unraveled the rope lengthwise and tied the remaining strands together.]
Reference to study above:
Förster, Jens; Friedman, Ronald S.; Liberman, Nira Temporal Construal Effects on Abstract and Concrete Thinking: Consequences for Insight and Creative Cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 87(2), Aug 2004, 177-189.
12 replies to "Think Of This To Boost Creativity In 43 Seconds"
Hi Rod,
Very interesting examples and points. I’ll have to put it into action and see what emerges.
Cheers
Gitie
Gitie,
Thanks for leaving a comment. And do let me know when you put these ideas into action. I’d love to hear how it works for you.
Rodney
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Judy,
Thanks for commenting. What did you think of the article?
Rodney
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Very interesting how thinking in the future helps creativity and hurts analysis. I don’t see where the 43 seconds comes in. Is thinking about the future for 43 seconds enough to boost creativity? Did they solve their creative problems in 43 seconds?
I find analytical thinking more difficult than creative thinking. Now I know focusing on the next 24 hours may help. I’m eager to try it. Thanks!
Karen,
Yeah you only have to think about the future for a short time to start thinking abstractly. And if the creative thinking task is abstract this will help. If the creative task is concrete this will not help. Analysis is usually concrete so it’s important to focus on concrete details to aid in analysis and people are more concrete when thinking of events that are near in time.
Let me know how this helps you.
Rodney
Very interesting. My thoughts would be that thinking about your life a year in the future requires creativity and visualization to do – so those muscles get stretched…so to speak. Thinking about tomorrow is more like an analytical problem such as, “Okay, what is my schedule tomorrow – what do the kids have going on? – what are we having for dinner and what do I need to get out of the freezer to defrost so we can eat it?” – so those muscles get stretched. Really nice to think about that. Non-mommy brain neurons are firing, and it’s great! Thanks for the post.
Elise,
Thanks for responding. Yes thinking of the future may involve creativity. The more important thing is that it makes people focus on abstractions. When you think of your life a year from now, you think in broad strokes instead of specifics. For example, you think of what job you’ll have instead of what specific tasks you’ll do. You think of what grade your kids might be in and not what specific projects they’ll be doing. Those specific things naturally come to mind when thinking of events that are near in time though. And it’s the concreteness of near-time thinking that aids analytical thinking.
And abstract thinking only aids abstract creativity. So if you have to think of reasons why a person might join a gym thinking abstractly or about the future helps. If you have to think of how a person might use the gym, abstract thinking won’t help.
Rodney
This was interesting. I thought about the future, one year from now, what I can accomplish, based on what I am learning now, then did the task. I experimented with the following:
I used the width of the laptop to represent the length of the tower from top to bottom.
Didn’t have a piece of string to hand, so used a a small piece of paper (about half the width of the laptop) and rolling it up to look like a rope.
I thought about splitting it into the middle, however this would be the same size, however if you split it lengthwise then it works (this last part was all done visually).
All of this from start to finish was done in about 15-20 seconds. Interestingly, would I of done it that fast if I only thought about tomorrow?
Stavros,
Good to see that you read this article of mine from 9 years ago. Since you may already have read the solution at the end of the post, I don’t think whether you were thinking about the future or not would make much of a difference.