Will watching Shrek turn your kid into a creative genius?

Okay, it won’t turn your kid into Picasso but recent research says it has two things going for it.

Green stimulates creativity:

According to newly published research, innovative thinking seems to be stimulated by the color green.

A research team led by University of Munich psychologist Stephanie Lichtenfeld reports the color of limes and leaves “has implications beyond aesthetics.” Specifically, a glimpse of green appears to activate “the type of pure, open (mental) processing required to do well on creativity tasks.”

The researchers found this effect with different groups of people, different tests of creativity, and differently designed experiments. Participants exposed to green outperformed those exposed to white, gray, red, and blue, respectively, suggesting there is something unique about the color as a creative catalyst.

Movies with magic in them increase creativity in children:

Two experiments examined the possible link between magical thinking and creativity in preschool children. In Exp. 1, 4- and 6-yr.-old children were shown a film with either a magical or nonmagical theme. Results indicated that the mean scores of children shown the magical film was significantly higher than that of children watching the nonmagical film on the majority of subsequent creativity tests for both age groups. This trend was also found for 6-yr.-olds’ drawings of impossible items. In Exp. 2, Exp. 1 was replicated successfully with 6- and 8-yr.-old children. Exposing children to a film with a magical theme did not affect their beliefs about magic. The results were interpreted to accentuate the role of magical thinking in children’s cognitive development. Classroom implications of the results were also discussed.

Source: “WATCHING FILMS WITH MAGICAL CONTENT FACILITATES CREATIVITY IN CHILDREN” from Perceptual and Motor Skills: Volume 111, Issue , pp. 261-277. 

Join over 195,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here.

Related posts:

How To Stop Being Lazy And Get More Done – 5 Expert Tips

How To Get People To Like You: 7 Ways From An FBI Behavior Expert

New Harvard Research Reveals A Fun Way To Be More Successful