Research: Productive Thinking (1)
"Productive thinking is impossible if the individual is chained to the past", Birch & Rabinowitz
One of the major areas discussed in this article involves creativity and is demonstrated in Buzan's exercise involving the uses of a paper clip. This provides an example of a psychological phenomenon termed "Functional Fixedness".
Briefly, Functional Fixedness means that we are fixed or rigid in our perceptions involving the uses of everyday objects, and this rigidity inhibits our ability to see how these objects can be used in novel ways.
A number of experiments have attested to the existence of Functional Fixedness. A classic experiment was one by Duncker (cited in Mayer, 1983), called the candle problem.
In Duncker's experiment, the subjects were required to mount a candle vertically on a screen to serve
as a lamp. The subjects in Group 1 were given a box containing matches, a second box containing candles, and a third box containing tacks. The subjects in Group 2 were given the matches, candles and tacks placed outside of the boxes. The correct solution to the problem was to melt wax onto the box, attach the candle to the box with the wax and finally tack the box to the screen.
Duncker observed that the subjects in Group 2, who were given the supplies placed outside of the boxes were more apt to discover the solution than the subjects in Group 1, who were given the supplies placed inside the boxes. Duncker's explanation was that "The placement
of objects inside a box helped to fix its function as a container, thus making it more difficult for the subjects to reformulate the function of the box and think of it as a support" (Mayer, 1983 page 56).
This knowledge regarding Functional Fixedness may have a tremendous impact in your life. Whether you are solving work-related or personal-related problems, you may become locked into your thinking by your preconceptions based on past experience.
By practicing exercises such as Buzan's paper clip demonstration, you will be able to break out
of your own Functional Fixedness and increase your creative thinking. The concept of Functional Fixedness and related exercises can be found in most textbooks in the area of Cognitive Psychology, such as Anderson's (1985) text.
You may develop similar exercises that will decrease Functional Fixedness. It may prove worthwhile to start off using a single object, such as the paper clip, and increase the possibilities by using several objects and requiring that people think of new
relationships between the objects, such as in Duncker's candle problem. We are rarely required to generate answers such as uses for a paper clip.
Rather, we are usually faced with solving complex problems involving relationships between many objects, people or concepts. By moving from exercises using single objects to relationships between objects, you can devise exercises that may become more relevant
to your own needs.
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