Can Habits Impede Creativity by Inducing Fixation?

Paula Ibáñez De Aldecoa,Sabine Tebbich,Sanne De Wit

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.683024

Paula Ibáñez De Aldecoa, Sabine Tebbich + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.683024

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Abstract

In a competitive and ever-changing world, the ability to generate outstanding ideas is crucial. However, this process can be impeded by factors such as fixation on ideas that emerged through prior experience. The aim of the present study was to shed light on the fixating effect of habits on creativity. To this end, healthy young adults were asked to generate alternative uses for items that differed in their frequency of use in the Alternative Uses Task (a standardized test for divergent thinking). We predicted that frequent past use of an item would lead to the formation of stimulus-response associations between the item and its most frequent use(s) and thereby hinder idea generation. Indeed, individuals were less flexible (but more fluent) in generating ideas for frequently used items than for unknown items. Additionally, we found that subjective automaticity of idea generation was negatively related with flexibility. Finally, we investigated whether individual differences in general habit tendency influence creativity, by relating performance on the Slips-of-Action task (an outcome devaluation paradigm extensively used in habit research) to performance on the Alternative Uses Task, the Candle Problem (a classic convergent thinking task) and two puzzles (non-conventional problem-solving tasks). While we did not find a significant relationship between habit tendency and the Alternative Uses Task or the Candle Problem scores, the tendency to rely on habits predicted probability to succeed and latency to solve one of the puzzles: less habit-prone participants were more likely to solve it and to do so faster. In conclusion, our study provides evidence for the notion that habits can negatively impact creativity and opens promising future avenues of research in this field.

Highlights

In a rapidly changing world, which forces us to confront new challenges every day, individuals who can generate innovative ideas and solutions have a distinct advantage over less creative thinkers
We investigated the role of familiarity and habits in mental fixation and divergent thinking by comparing fluency and flexibility scores in the Alternative Uses Task (AUT) for items used frequently or rarely, and for unknown items, and relating this to subjective automaticity of idea generation
We investigated the relation between individual differences in habit tendency and the aforementioned variables

Summary

Introduction

In a rapidly changing world, which forces us to confront new challenges every day, individuals who can generate innovative ideas and solutions have a distinct advantage over less creative thinkers. To maximize the benefits of creative potential, one must first overcome the factors that hinder it, such as moving past old ideas “inside the box” (Storm and Angello, 2010) These “old ideas” can induce fixation, which refers to the difficulty in fully identifying the possible ways to use an object (i.e., its affordances). If a particular response (R) or solution (e.g., drawing) is repeatedly performed in the presence of consistent contextual stimuli (S) or a consistent object (e.g., a pencil), a S-R association (and eventually a habit) is formed, such that, on future occasions, the stimulus can directly prime the behavior through the S-R association (e.g., pencil-draw; de Wit and Dickinson, 2009; de Wit et al, 2018). Habits could hamper creativity because mental activation of old solutions can impair the consideration of novel ideas or responses (e.g., pencildrumstick), leading to a loss of flexibility in behavioral control (Gillan et al, 2011; de Wit et al, 2012a)

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