Environments and Motivations: their implications for cultivating creativity

1. Environments and Motivations: their implications for cultivating creativity Matt Mignogna

2. Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation • Pink on creativity: intrinsic motivation > extrinsic motivation • (Amabile, 1996) • When intrinsically motivated, a creator focuses on the creative process and its inherent rewards • When extrinsically motivated, a creator’s motivation is redirected toward outcomes not connected with the process • “Thus, situations that provide creators with the opportunity to learn foster creativity, whereas situations that emphasize performance over learning are detrimental.” (Forgeard and Mecklenburg, 2013) • Sound familiar?

3. The power of intrinsic motivation Dan Ariely India Study 1 day vs. 2 weeks vs. 5 months Who did better? cognitive skill vs. mechanical skill Atlassian: Quarterly 24-hour-free Thursdays Numerous system improvements and new product ideas (Ariely et al., 2009)

4. Extrinsic Motivation isn’t totally bad • Extrinsic motivation exists beyond reward & punishment • Extrinsic Social Influences can be very good • “Extrinsic social influences that reinforce creators’ attention to the creative process, enhance learning by providing useful information, or validate their sense of self-competence…probably tend to be beneficial and to supplement intrinsic motivation rather than damage it.” (Forgeard and Mecklenburg, 2013) • E.g. Audience’s response to a performance

5. Pro-social motivation – Beneficiaries • Much work focuses on audience-creator effects • Social facilitation/inhibition (soon) • Marie Forgeard et al. (2013) propose additional dimension for creative motivation: creator-audience effects (beneficiaries) • Knowledge of expected impact of pro-social work can motivate creativity • Allie Brosh’sAdventures in Depression • Creators “are driven by pro-social motivation insofar as creators intend audience members to benefit from this experience.” (Forgeard) • Persistence and vigor, psychological distance, perspective-taking

6. -IDEO founder David Kelley on creativity Most people are born creative. As children, we revel in imaginary play, ask outlandish questions, draw blobs and call them dinosaurs. But over time, because of socialization and formal education, a lot of us start to stifle those impulses. We learn to be warier of judgment, more cautious, more analytical. The world seems to divide into “creatives” and “noncreatives,” and too many people consciously or unconsciously resign themselves to the latter category.

7. Constraints on creativity • Removing constraints thought to be universal path to creativity • Recent research (Medeiros et al., 2014) suggests constraints can help foster creativity when: • Not too few or too many constraints • Positive attitude towards constraints and work (intrinsic motivation) • Constraints on this presentation?

8. EXPERIMENT TIME!!! Groups A & B

9. Group A Problem You are attempting to escape from a prison tower. You found a rope in your cell that was half as long enough to permit you to reach the ground safely. You divided the rope in half, tied the two parts together, and escaped. How could you have done this?

10. Group B Problem A prisoner was attempting to escape from a tower. He found a rope in his cell that was half as long enough to permit him to reach the ground safely. He divided the rope in half, tied the two parts together, and escaped. How could he have done this?

11. The Problems? • You are attempting to escape from a prison tower. You found a rope in your cell that was half as long enough to permit you to reach the ground safely. You divided the rope in half, tied the two parts together, and escaped. How could you have done this? • A prisoner was attempting to escape from a tower. He found a rope in his cell that was half as long enough to permit him to reach the ground safely. He divided the rope in half, tied the two parts together, and escaped. How could he have done this?

12. Recipient affects creativity • Polmanand Emich (2011) found that creating for the benefit of someone else led to more originality than creating for oneself (48% vs. 66%) • futurethink’s “Kill the Company” • “when we think of the situations we are in, we tend to think more concretely and can struggle to generate new ideas, whereas when we think about the situations others are in, especially situations distant from our own reality, we tend to widen our perspective and generate ideas that are a little more abstract” (Burkus, 2012). • Social inhibition caused by our desire to fit in • not as creative solutions • No social inhibition when thinking of others

13. Findings &Why does creativity matter? • Influenced by constraints and recipient of creativity • Ultimately it’s a matter of intrinsic motivation • Extrinsic social influences and pro-social behavior best amplify already-intrinsic motivation • Essential for 21st century work and problems • With technology and outsourcing, those with better cognition and ideas will own the future

14. Sources Burkus, (2012). Why thinking of others improves our creativity. The Creativity Post. http://www.creativitypost.com/business/why_thinking_of_others_improves_our_creativity Daniel Pink. (2009, July). The puzzle of motivation. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation#t-568117 Medeiros, K. E., Partlow, P. J., & Mumford, M. D. (2014, April 7). Not Too Much, Not Too Little: The Influence of Constraints on Creative Problem Solving. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036210 Dan Ariely, Uri Gneezy, George Lowenstein, and Nina Mazar (2009), “Large Stakes and Big Mistakes.” . Review of Economic Studies. Forgeard, M. J. C.,& Mecklenburg, A. C. (2013). The two dimensions of motivation and a reciprocal model of the creative process. Review of General Psychology, 17, 255-266.   Kelley & Kelley, (2012, Dec). Reclaim Your Creative Confidence. Harvard Business Review. .