The impact of originality instructions on cognitive strategy use in divergent thinking

Abstract

The presence of more original ideas in the late phases of divergent thinking (DT) compared to the early phases is one of the most replicable findings in the creativity literature. This article explores this order effect in relation to the strategy use in DT and examines if it may be altered by originality instructions. One possible way to explain the order effect is to understand the source of the responses. It is likely that early ideas tend to come from memory and experiences while late ideas come from more complex thought processes such as imagination, which leads late ideas to be more creative. However, this sequentiality could change with an explicit instruction to “be original”. We conducted two separate studies to test these hypotheses. In Study 1, eighty-nine high school students completed four Many Uses tasks and then indicated if they experienced them or not. In Study 2, the same hypotheses were tested with a different sample, DT prompts, study design, and analytical method. Results from both studies indicated that inexperienced responses were produced more frequently in the second half than the first. The explicit instruction to be original pushed inexperienced responses to earlier phases in DT although there were still more experienced responses in the first half than the second half. Thus, the originality instructions modulated, but not eliminated, the typical sequence of cognitive strategy use in DT. Results are discussed in the light of relevant literature and theories.