How to Promote our creativity Using Our Visionary Thinking
We are the people always search for creativity without promoting our visionary thinking. Why we are more creative when mind and body are out of step.
We are the people always search for creativity without promoting our visionary thinking. Why we are more creative when mind and body are out of step.
Usually we perform best with mind and body in sync. With our
thoughts tied to our actions decisions are made faster, we are more engaged and
we feel at one with ourselves.
If you
want to be creative, though, sometimes it pays to be out of sync according to a recent study by Huang and Galinsky (2011). They had some
people recalling a happy time in their life while at the same time frowning.
Another group recalled sad memories while smiling. The idea was to get their
minds going one way and their bodies going the other.
In two comparison groups, participants were told to produce
consonant mind-body states, i.e. happy memory plus happy face and sad memory
plus sad face.
After this participants had to make judgements about how typical
words were of a particular category. For example, how typical a vehicle is a
camel? How typical a piece of furniture is a telephone? And how typical a
vegetable is garlic? These are all weak examples of each category compared with
more typical examples of a car, a table and a potato.
The results showed that when participants were in a dissonant frame of mind (say smiling
while thinking sad thoughts) they were more likely to judge camels, telephones
and garlic as relatively typical examples of a vehicle, piece of furniture and
vegetable. On the other hand, those whose minds and bodies were coherent
thought they were less typical examples of those categories.
Participants
in the dissonant conditions, then, were thinking more expansively. Expansive thinking is very
useful in the early stages of the creative process. It allows two previously
unconnected ideas to be brought together in new and exciting ways.
As creatures of habit people automatically go down the same
avenues of thought time after time. It's why creating something new is so
difficult. Mind-body dissonance, though, sends a signal that we are outside of
our comfort zone, that a new type of response is required.
Image Source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1405107
Image Source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1405107
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