Research Design Connection: Creativity Breaks
Carruthers reports that taking a short break in the middle of a task supports creative thinking. In her presentation, Carruthers shares information about a study during which 100 people were asked to think of unusual uses for a familiar object, such as a brick. The total number of ideas generated was included in the analysis of performance as was the number of types of ideas and how creative and unusual the options presented were. In the middle of the process of trying to come up with those unusual uses, 75 of the 100 participants were asked to work on a different, irrelevant task for five minutes. When the work of the interrupted 75 before and after that break was compared, Carruthers found a higher proportion of ideas were from new categories and a greater proportion of ideas were original after the break than before the five-minute diversions. So, breaks in …
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