Unfix your mind

Why is it that we find it difficult to step outside out mindsets? It seems very difficult to change a pattern of thinking once it has been established. We seem rooted in the thinking of the age in which we exist, and this constrains our creativity. This was why Voltaire declared that

'Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time'.

We need creative thinkers. We need people in our society who can break free from the constraints of 'the ideas of the time', and 'think outside the box'. Research in cognitive science reveals to us a great deal about the problem of constrained thinking. In one experiment in problem solving, psychologists showed the image below:

The problem was how to connect all nine dots with just 4 straight lines. The rules of the problem were that the four lines had to be continuous, with no lifting of the pencil from the page. Most participants couldn't complete the problem in the time allocated.

Those who were unsuccessful saw a box. They constrained their thinking and could not see beyond the boundaries they had imposed upon their own thinking. The successful ones thought outside the box and saw other possibilities. The solution below shows how the problem can be solved if you break out and think beyond self-imposed constraints.

The problem of self-imposed constraints is otherwise known as functional fixedness and occurs in various contexts every day. We travel to work by the same route, and we have a specific routine for every task we do during the day. We rarely think about ways to do things differently, because we are risk averse, or simply comfortable in our routines. Creative thinking demands some risk taking. Creativity is not born out of being comfortable. It requires different patterns of thought that are outside routine, and beyond the regular. Creative solutions often emerge when we think ... 'there must be a better way to do this' ... and then examine the problem from all the possible angles. The solution to the nine dots problem above seems difficult to find at first glance but once it has been revealed, it is very obvious. There are many other similar problems we face in our daily lives, but often our fixedness prevents us from finding the solution. 

So here's a problem for you to solve, to practice developing your creative skills: 

A man enters a field with an unopened package - and dies. What was in the unopened package? 

Write your answers in the comments section below.

Graphics from Wikimedia Commons
Image from Allan Ajifo on Wikimedia Commons


Unfix your mind by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.