Researchers at Iowa State University have unlocked the key to creativity, and that secret is Minecraft. Kind of. The researchers bought two teams to play Minecraft, one other to play “a NASCAR racing game”, and one other to observe TV. Then all of them drew aliens and had their creativity judged based mostly on how far their drawings strayed from boring human anatomy.
The group that performed Minecraft with out additional instruction had been judged to be probably the most inventive – however the group that performed Minecraft whereas being instructed to “be as creative as possible” had been the least. What’s happening there, then? ‘Not sure’, say the researchers.
Here’s co-researcher and psychology professor Douglas Gentile, telling you concerning the factor he understands greater than me.
The most attention-grabbing half must be how urging individuals to be inventive wound up restraining them. Rather than give one rationalization, Gentile suggests a pair:
“Maybe creativity’s like a muscle, and they tried really hard in the game and then it was worn out by the time they got to the alien drawing task. Maybe they didn’t like being told how to play, and so were kind of subtly rejecting our instruction. We don’t really know, and followup studies will have to look at this. But it does look very similar to much of the other game research, that what you practice you can get better at, but in fact how you do it might matter just as much.”
So, no agency conclusions – however a promising avenue for additional analysis. His ‘exhaustion’ principle does remind me of these case research that recommend willpower features like a useful resource, with judges being extra more likely to reject parole functions the closer they get to lunch. Then once more, the concept that being instructed to be inventive winds up limiting your pondering has an enchantment of its personal.
I’m additionally excited by precisely how they assessed creativity. That alien drawing activity is a brilliant approach of going about measuring a course of that appears absurdly exhausting to evaluate scientifically, nevertheless it has its limits. You may draw a single straight line and presumably rating most factors for creativity, which (delightfully) appears each mistaken and really correct.
The full paper is frustratingly locked behind a paywall, however right here’s the university write up.
