Change it Up: Inactivity and Repetitive Activity Reduce Creative Thinking

Abstract

Across three experiments, we show that a change in the levels of physical activity increases creative thinking, whereas inactivity or repetitive activity lowers it. Participants walking forward were more creative the first few minutes of initiating physical activity than those sitting, or those merely watching changing scenery, and these effects dissipated when they continued the forward movement over time (within 8 minutes). Furthermore, merely anticipating a change in physical activity, for example, when participants were aware a task is coming to its conclusion, also increased creative thinking. We hypothesize that a change in physical activity cues the need to navigate new situations, and thus, can increase mental flexibility and creative thinking to deal with new circumstances. But once people habituate to their physical state, either of being at rest or being in motion, their level of creative thinking also returns to baseline levels. We confirm that mood, feelings of achievement, and energy are not responsible for the observed effects.

Acute and Chronic Physical Activity Increases Creative Ideation Performance: A Systematic Review and Multilevel Meta-analysis

“…The findings of the present meta-analyses are in line with the general assumption that physical activity offers a change, that is the transition from one state to the other, which could enhance the quality and the quantity of ideas by preparing people to deal with these changes [ 96 , 98 ]. Main et al [ 98 ] showed in three experiments that changes in physical activity enhanced creative thinking, while inactivity or repetitive physical activity lowered it. However, this line of argumentation is strongly restricted to acute effects of physical activity and does not provide explanations for the stronger chronic effects of physical activity on creative ideation performance.…”

“…Based on the broaden and build theory, which assumes that positive affect coincides with more original ideas via cognitive flexibility [ 65 , 124 ], the physical activity-associated affective shift was suggested to increase creative ideation performance [ 43 , 87 , 125 ]. Although this hypothesis has been investigated with cross-sectional and intervention studies, to the best of our knowledge, no study to date has confirmed the implied mediating role of positive affect on creative ideation outcome [ 43 , 82 , 98 , 108 ]. However, as outlined by Biddle et al [ 6 ], the effects of physical activity on stress (negative affect) and positive affect in ecologically valid settings could be a fruitful area for future research [ 43 , 126 ].…”

Effects of homework creativity on academic achievement and creativity disposition: Evidence from comparisons with homework time and completion based on two independent Chinese samples

“…As Zheng (2013) observed, to get higher scores in the highly competitive entrance examination of high school and college, those Chinese students chose to practice a lot of repetitive exercises. The results of some behavior experiments suggested that repetitive activity could reduce the diverse thinking of subjects' (e.g., Main et al, 2020). Furthermore, the repetitive exercises would lead to fast habituation (can be observed by skin conductance records) which hurts the creative thinking of participants (Martindale et al, 1996).…”

Estrategias didácticas para promover el pensamiento creativo en aulas

“…Flórez et al (2018) La metacognición Proponen la metacognición como una estrategia, permitiendo al sujeto controlar lo que aprende de manera significativa. Main et al (2020) Danza aeróbica Proponen como estrategia la danza aeróbica para desarrollar el pensamiento creativo. Las personas que realizan ejercicio aeróbico muestran un pensamiento más divergente que aquellas que no lo hacen.…”