Friday, 30 August 2013

Messy Environment Leads to the Most Creative Ideas

Researchers at the University of Minnesota claim that the best ideas visit us in a messy environment.





In their view, a workplace often characterizes its owner. Permanent order points to a pedant who is prone to a healthy diet and at the same time is generous to others. But those who work in a messy environment, tend to go beyond the conventions and think much faster. Among slovens there are a lot of creative people and scientists who have no time to maintain order.

This was confirmed by an experiment in which half of the workers were placed in a perfectly clean office, and others – into a complete chaos. Volunteers were given the task to think of ten ways to use a conventional table tennis ball. In addition, they could donate to charity and eat an apple or some chocolate. The test showed that people who worked in a clean office were prone to charity, but showed less creativity in performing basic tasks. As for the task itself, the number of ideas in the two groups did not differ, but the creative contribution of the “slovens” was much higher.