Focus! Creative Success is Enjoyed through Restricted Choice

Abstract

A common belief states that more choice of creative inputs boosts consumer creativity because it expands consumers’ creative solution space. Two experimental studies, run in a knitting and a crafting context, challenge this intuition and suggest that restricting the choice of creative inputs actually enhances creativity for experienced consumers. The authors find that this outcome is due to consumers’ ability to enjoy the creative process more, which in turn positively affects their creative output, as judged by experts. In contrast, consumers perceive themselves as more creative (regardless of experience level) when they have a greater rather than a limited choice of inputs. The authors discuss how these findings open up new avenues for research on creativity and choice overload.