On Constraints and Creativity
Jonathan Firth's Memory & Metacognition Updates #83
I’m curious about how difficulties and challenges play a role in creativity.
We know that some desirable difficulties – such as the spacing effect– can make learning more effective (see update #10).
Difficulties such as spacing and retrieval are relevant to creativity, too. They help build knowledge in our students, and in doing so, can contribute to creativity. Why? As mentioned recently (see, for example, update #80), creativity depends on memory. So, any technique that leads to better retention in memory will indirectly be good for creativity.
Constraints
Another difficulty relevant to creativity is a constraint in a task itself.
As I’ve read more about creativity, a fascinating and surprising finding is that absolute freedom to create is actually unhelpful. The idea that creativity relies on people having as much freedom as possible is a myth (Benedek et al., 2021).
Therefore, to help creativity we shouldn’t be telling students to go wild, or say, ‘Go ahead and be as creative as you can’! Instead, we can boost creativity via constraints and limitations. For example:
It’s easier to write a creative short story when you have prompts and a genre to work in.
Architecture is constrained by the setting of a building, and this leads to innovative ideas (as my architect friend Edward Dymock put it, “For the good architect, ‘constraints’ simply become ‘context’, and, ultimately, opportunities”).
A researcher will come up with a better idea for a study if they are constrained by knowledge of methodology.
The third example above shows another link back to memory and learning—factual knowledge is itself a constraint! Knowledge allows us to quickly reject flawed solutions, and to focus on options that have potential.
To sum up
To conclude, it seems to be that all kinds of challenges and difficulties are important for creativity. I am looking forward to exploring the links and overlaps between these areas further, and will say more about desirable difficulties and creativity in a future post.
In the meantime, here is a wonderful paper on the link between constraints and creativity:
Tromp, C., & Baer, J. (2022). Creativity from constraints: Theory and applications to education. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 46, 101184.
Finally, just a reminder that I’m speaking about creativity at the Festival of Education this week! Here’s a thread on all the cog-sci talks.
Enjoy! And all the best for the coming week,
Jonathan
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