Hypnotherapy, NLP and Life Coach Portland, OR: Interesting Facts about Learning and Creativity

Interesting facts about learning and creativity are included in Ellen Langor’s book, “The Power of Mindful Learning”.

She writes about a study she conducted where she tested the effect of having  prior knowledge on creativity. She is a professor and often uses her students as helpers and subjects.

With students as subjects, she gave them a group of blocks. The task was to build a bridge with the blocks. She divided them into two groups.

Group one were shown the blocks and several ways they could be used to create other objects, not just a bridge. They were given ‘prior knowledge’.

Group two were shown the blocks and were not exposed to any use of them.

Both groups were told to come up with as many ways as possible to build a bridge.

Group one, the group given examples of block building came up with two ways to build the bridge.

Group two, the group given no suggestions, came up with nine ways to build the bridge. She proved her hypothesis that exposure to knowledge of using the blocks prior to the task had a negative effect on the creativity of the builders.

This is part of her suggestion that mindfulness in learning situations improves creativity.  Fresh ideas come from no prior knowledge.

Self-hypnosis helps us create.