“Switching On” Creativity: Task Switching Increases Creativity by Reducing Cognitive Fixation

Abstract

The contemporary workplace increasingly demands individuals to switch among cognitive tasks. Whereas past research has focused on the downsides of task switching, the present research is among the first to uncover a potential upside-increased creativity. In two experiments using three distinct measures of creativity, we show that task switching enhances two principal forms of creativity: divergent thinking (Study 1) and convergent thinking (Study 2). Participants who continually alternated back and forth between two creativity tasks (i.e., continual-switch condition) outperformed both those who switched between the tasks at their discretion (i.e., discretionary-switch condition) and those who focused on one task for the first half of the allotted time before switching to the other task for the second half (i.e., midpoint- switch condition). We present evidence that task switching, which involves temporarily setting a task aside, fosters creativity by reducing cognitive fixation. This finding is all the more important because three subsequent studies (Studies 3a-3c) reveal that when incentivized to choose a task switching strategy that will maximize creative performance, people overwhelmingly fail to choose the continual-switch condition. These findings suggest that creativity can be “switched on” by deliberately structuring people’s work routines to capture the creative benefits of task switching.