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People Are More Creative At Solving Other People’s Problems Than Their Own

Polman and Emich (2011) conducted four studies in total to support this. I will talk about the methods in first three and what the results show in each while ignoring the fourth.

In first study, 262 student participants were told to draw a picture of an alien that they would later write about or have someone else write about. In actuality, no writing was required. This first study found that participants drew more creative pictures of aliens (i.e aliens that had more than two eyes) when told that someone else was going to write about it than when they were. This lend some support that people are more creative when they put problems as someone’s else. However, the researchers point out that the results could be confounded with distraction. That is people who were told they were going to draw a picture for themselves to later write on were preoccupied with the latter task that they couldn’t think creatively. As a result of this potential confound, three more studies were conducted to rule this out.

In a second study, 581 participants were asked to generate gift ideas for self, close others, or distant others. Research in the past found that sharing birthdays, much less than a month with a stranger is sufficient to create emotional bonding. Hence, to manipulate closeness, participants were told that the people they were generating gift ideas for either had birthdays close to theirs (within 1 month)(close others) or far away (more than 1 month)(distant others). Then the study measured the creativity of gift ideas by how novel or useful the ideas were (more novel or useful scored higher on creativity). The study found that people generated more creative gift ideas for distant others than close others than selves.

In study three, following up on study two, the researchers added in the level of information participants would receive about the person they were thinking of gift ideas for. To manipulate level of information, participants were told either one or six random traits about the person they were to think of gift ideas for. Then the study measured confidence level (how confident do you know about this person?), emotional involvement (how emotionally involved were you when you thought about the gift ideas?), and mood (how did you feel at the time when you were coming up with the ideas?). Similar to study two, creativity of gift ideas were also measured. Study three found that knowledge about the person, level of confidence, emotional involvement, and mood did not affect creativity of gift ideas. Having ruled out these variables, the researchers argue that the results are mainly explained by perception of closeness of these people.

In summary of the studies, all points to the same conclusion that people generate more creative solutions for distant others than close others than self. The researchers propose that the findings have to do with differential cognitive biases that exist in each situation (thinking for others vs thinking for someone close vs thinking for self). For instance, when we think about solutions for self, we take into account self-preference and personal risks involved with the decision outcomes, hence we are less creative, while when we think for others, we might ignore their needs and situation (and think of what ever comes to mind).

Source:

Polman E., Emich K.J. Decisions for others are more creative than decisions for the self (2011) Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37 (4), pp. 492-501.

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