How Legos and Google Suppress Our Creativity | By Dr. Brad Kayden

"We are the music makers, we are the dreamers of the dreams"

           Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy, Poet~             

Legos have long been known to be good for developing kids' creativity, but what new research has found explains how, in some cases, these toys and even things as ubiquitous as the popular search-engine Google suppress our creativity and our broader problem solving abilities.    

I am sure by now that you are well aware of the value that the world puts on creative-types, people like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.  They have innovated not only within their own industries but how people think, in general, about their own lives.  Genius-creativity does not, of course, exist within all of us, but what if it did?  What are some of the first steps towards moving us in this direction?  This post will look at it from both adults' and children's perspectives.

Finding Creativity   

What develops creativity in adults and children has long been a hot topic of research.  Science has been anxious to understand creativity believing that better understanding it will help solve future problems.  There is great curiosity in and outside of the academic community about what promotes, drives, and sustains creativity in some but not others.  Many want to know, "How do we understand creativity in order to reduce the gaps that exists between creative and non-creative types?" 

New Research 

New research on creativity begins to answer these questions.  We will look at two studies, one aimed at understanding what inhibits our creativity, as adults; and the other that examines how creativity or absence of it affects children and their language, math and general understanding of how to navigate the world.    

Study #1:  What Inhibits Our Creativity

Professors from the University of Wisconsin and Buskerud and Vestfold University College, Norway have published in the Journal of Marketing Research (2015) a study that uses the classic kids' toy Legos.  It suggests what we, as adults, can do in order to not squash but instead develop our creative sides.  

A less than complex research design, the study consisted of two groups of adults.  Each were given one of two problems.  They were then asked to use Legos to solve them.  

One group was given a well-defined problem while the other an ill-defined problem.  The group with the well-defined problem were given directions that included step-by-step instructions on what to build.  The ill-defined problem group were given no instructions at all other than just "to build something."  

Findings on What Inhibits Creativity

In the end, the researchers concluded the following about what inhibits our creativity:

1. Legos can stimulate the development of creativity in kids but according to the adults of the well-defined problem group from this study, the process of adding step-by-step instructions to the mix dramatically changes the creative outcomes. 
2. The study showed that by having a specific goal the adults of the well-defined problem group demonstrated diminished capacities to be creative.
3. Further, the study showed that our work, as adults, with well-defined problems inhibits our abilities to deal with ill-defined problems.  The researchers explained that within the well-defined problem mindset we are more compelled to seek out other well-defined problem-solving opportunities.  Over time they suggest these tendencies develop our aversion to seeking out or dealing with ill-defined problems that would, inherently, force us to be more creative.  
4. Essentially, ill-defined problems promote creativity, where well-defined problems, on the contrary, not as much. 

Is Google Suppressing our Creativity?

The study's authors used the everyday example of Google to better explain how creativity and problem-solving typically work for us.  They said the urge to Google something instead of dealing with the struggles to retrieve information from our minds is promoting, in a sense, well-defined problems.  This in turn detracts, as the study suggests, from our abilities to be creative in our problem solving.

Study #2:  General Detractors in the Development of Language Skills in Children

In 2008, the MegaBloks Study was conducted.  Megabloks, a larger version of Legos, were used to study children's play experiences and how language forms.  In this study, three conditions were examined among children between the ages of three and four and a half years that, in many ways, resembles the 2015 Legos study.  

Again, the research design was fairly simple.  Researchers from the University of Delaware and Temple University used three conditions:  

Condition #1 

Experimenters introduced children to a prebuilt structure of blocks they were invited to play with.

Condition #2

Experimenters introduced children to blocks and this time told them what to build.  

Condition #3

Experimenters introduced children to blocks and simply invited them to play.  

At this point, children were shown a card with a picture on it and were told to recreate it using their MegaBloks.  

Findings on How a Lack of Creativity Inhibits Language Skill Development

What researchers found was that the children in the third condition, who were simply able to play with the blocks--be creative and create structures for themselves--used many more of their language skills.  Researchers were able to determine that their words related to concepts of space (i.e. next to, in front of, behind) and math (i.e. littlest, biggest) more than the other two groups.  

One researcher concluded:  

When we give [children] toys that are preassembled or that ask for one right answer, we minimize the creation of spatial language.  This is important because spatial language serves as the basis for understanding how we navigate the world as well as for many mathematical concepts.   

The Moral

While it is research and there is never a moral to the story, if there was, it might tell us to be careful with how much we depend upon the utilization of instructions, following the rules, and failing to think for oneself.  The box that many refer to thinking outside of, in these cases, are less metaphorical and more tangible examples of what can be done to improve creativity.  

Further, if we expect to keep our creative edge sharp, we must actively go after it and not mistake our everyday routines for building our creative prowess.  For many of us, it is necessary to become more adept and comfortable with identifying creatively beneficial ill-informed problems to think about and solve.  We must get comfortable with being uncomfortable as Jobs, Musk and Zuckerberg have had to do or risk isolating ourselves from our more creative sides.   

  

Source Reference:

1.  American Marketing Association. "Do Legos, standardized testing, and Googling hamper creativity?." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 12 August 2015. .

2.  Galinsky, E.  (2010) Mind in the Making:  The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs.  New York.

Journal Reference:

1. C. Page Moreau and Marit Gundersen Engeset. The Downstream Consequences of Problem-Solving Mindsets: How Playing with Lego Influences Creativity. Journal of Marketing Research, 2015