Are great artists more likely to be crazy?
ccessful artists are not more likely to have schizophrenia but they have epic rates of depression and bipolar disorder. Via Imagine: How Creativity Works: Andreasen found that 80 percent of the writers met the formal diagnostic criteria for some type of depression. These successful artists weren’t crazy— they were just exceedingly sad. And: “Successful writers are like prizefighters who keep on getting hit but won’t go down,” Andreasen says. “They’ll stick with it until it’s right. And that seems to be…
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Does brainstorming for new ideas really work?
. Via Imagine: How Creativity Works: There’s just one problem with brainstorming: it doesn’t work. Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, summarizes the science: “Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.” In fact, the very first empirical test of Osborn’s technique, which was performed at Yale in 1958, soundly refuted the premise. The experiment was simple: Forty-eight male undergraduates…
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The Average Daily Activity When You Are Full Of Potential Creativity:
ur morning shower. Via Imagine: How Creativity Works: Why is a relaxed state of mind so important for creative insights? When our minds are at ease— when those alpha waves are rippling through the brain— we’re more likely to direct the spotlight of attention inward, toward that stream of remote associations emanating from the right hemisphere. In contrast, when we are diligently focused, our attention tends to be directed outward, toward the details of the problems we’re trying to solve.…
1 min read
3 quick tips for being more creative:
First, try to make yourself happier. Even just watching a short comedy clip can help: Via Jonah Lehrer's book Imagine: How Creativity Works: Beeman has demonstrated that people who score high on a standard measure of happiness solve about 25 percent more insight puzzles than people who are feeling angry or upset. In fact, even fleeting feelings of delight can lead to dramatic increases in creativity. After watching a short, humorous video— Beeman uses a clip of Robin Williams…
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Is there an upside to attention deficit disorder?
makes you more creative. Via Imagine: How Creativity Works: Surprisingly, those students diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) got significantly higher scores. White then measured levels of creative achievement in the real world, asking the students if they’d ever won prizes at juried art shows or been honored at science fairs. In every single domain, from drama to engineering, the students with ADHD had achieved more. Their attention deficit turned out to be a creative blessing. Join over…
1 min read
Will watching Shrek turn your kid into a creative genius?
ay, 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…
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5 Things You Need To Know Before Changing Jobs
insights with links to the research backing them up: You're not alone. Right now most people are unhappy with their jobs. A boring job can give you a heart attack. And people with no job are happier than people with a lousy one. If you're afraid of losing your job, you probably should be. Job insecurity can kill you. And you want to find a new job before you lose the one you have. When you start looking it…
1 min read
How can you quickly and easily make someone act more kind?
mic their behavior. I've posted a number of times before on the power of mimicry to influence others (here, here, here.) This study is interesting because it demonstrates that mimicry doesn't work by only building a bond between the two involved, it makes the person who is mimicked feel better and act nicer to everyone. Recent studies have shown that mimicry occurs unintentionally and even among strangers. In the present studies, we investigated the consequences of this automatic phenomenon in…
1 min read
