Freedom from constraints: Darkness and dim illumination promote creativity

Steidle, Anna; Werth, Lioba

doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2013.05.003

Cited by 109 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Ritter, Damian, Simonton, van Baaren, Strick, Derks, & Dijksterhuis, 2012;Steidle and Werth, 2013;Vohs, Redden, & Rahinal, 2013). Of particular note, is the extensive literature showing a relationship between positive activating moods and divergent thinking (Baas, De Dreu & Nijstad, 2008;Davis, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvisation facilitates divergent thinking and creativity: Realizing a benefit of primary school arts education.

Sowden

Clements

Redlich

et al. 2015

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

115

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The benefit of arts education for cultural engagement, wider academic achievement, and as a contributor to the creative economy is a subject of significant debate. In the present work we focus on the potential for simple arts-based improvisation activities to enhance divergent thinking skills and creativity in primary school age children. In a first experiment we compared the effect of children taking part in an improvised vs. non-improvised dance class on their subsequent performance on the Instances Task (Wallach & Kogan, 1965) and on a creative 'toy' design task. In a second experiment children took part in verbal and acting improvisation games or in matched control games before completing figural activity 1 of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (Torrance, 1974). In both experiments we found that children who took part in the improvisation interventions showed better divergent thinking and creativity after the intervention. Our findings suggest that simple, arts-based improvisation interventions could have domain general benefits for creative cognition processes. Further, they indicate one way in which simply making better use of existing arts education provision could provide a cost-effective way to increase creativity relevant skills in primary school children. We consider putative mechanisms for the improvisation effects and specify directions for future work.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improvisation facilitates divergent thinking and creativity: Realizing a benefit of primary school arts education.

Sowden

Clements

Redlich

et al. 2015

Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts

115

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, natural light has been identified as the preferred source of light over artificial lighting [29], and the impact of natural daylight over artificial light on behaviour, such as cognitive performance, has been explored [30]. On the brightness of light, dim environments have been found to increase creativity [31] and even reduce calorie intake [32], whereas bright environments have been shown to improve alertness and reported happiness [33], enhance concentration [34], improve adjustment to night shift work [35] and increase public self-awareness [36]. Furthermore, in a study of light and behaviour, Chiou and Cheng [37] conducted a series of experiments to examine the impact of lighting on ethical behaviour.…”

Section: Lightmentioning

confidence: 99%

The SALIENT Checklist: Gathering up the Ways in Which Built Environments Affect What We Do and How We Feel

2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:In recent years, behavioural science has emerged as an additional tool to explore the impact of built environments on behaviour and wellbeing. Recognising the potential for further research in this field, we have sought to better understand how built environments affect what we do, as well as how they make us feel. We began this process through a review of the behavioural science literature, and have brought together evidence to develop a checklist for design with wellbeing in mind. In this paper, we present Sound, Air, Light, Image, Ergonomics and Tint as the mnemonic SALIENT, which forms a checklist. We outline an example where elements of the checklist have been applied in a real-world setting to examine subjective wellbeing (SWB). We present this example to illustrate how the SALIENT checklist could potentially be applied more extensively to measure the impact of built environments on wellbeing.

show abstract

“…On the diagram, the poor relation type O (somewhat important) is excluded because, as the company is small, any distance could already be considered a distance of little importance. For the blocks positioning, the studies about the impact of the proximity to windows in job satisfaction and in the encouragement of creative work (Stokols et al, 2002;Steidle & Werth, 2013) are also considered. Bold double lines are absolutely necessary relationships, simple lines are very important relationships, and dashed lines are important relationships.…”

Section: Relationship Diagram and Layout Alternativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The convergent nature is related to analytical activities, like sorting, filtering, and developing the ideas that may eventually lead to an innovation. The presence of plants, flowers (Shibata & Suzuki, 2002; and windows with views (Stone & Irvine, 1994;Steidle & Werth, 2013), the use of raw materials (Doorley & Witthoft, 2012), dim illumination (Steidle & Werth, 2013), high ceilings (Meyers-Levy & Zhu, 2007), and asymmetric spaces (Kristensen, 2004) have all been associated with more freedom and are deemed best for the divergent steps of creative tasks. More so, many experiments on physical environments for creativity highlight the great importance of meetings among people, mainly face-to-face interaction-but also virtual encounters-as the most important activity in order to achieve creative insights (Tompkins, White, Bozer, & Tanchoco, 2010;Oksanen & Ståhle, 2013).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Facilities Planning for a Creative Company

Barradas¹,

Alves²,

Cardoso³

2015

CBR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Facilities planning tools have been used by project managers for planning industry spaces for decades now, but applications in creative organizations are still sparse. This happens mainly because of a gap that exists between engineering and psychology fields, with the first developing planning tools for production but with little concern for creativity and the other developing spaces for creativity, but with a lack of tools. Both try to solve the same issue: fostering productivity in the workplace, but they need to be linked first, in order to accomplish it. How to close this gap? Can a project manager plan the facilities for a creative organizational in the best way possible? In this paper, a new approach is used for studying the design of physical environments that foster organizational creativity, combining the results of psychological studies on the impact of physical environment on creativity with the facilities planning body of knowledge applied by industrial engineers. In order to test the results, a single case study is developed in a small IT consulting firm. By using the systematic layout planning (SLP) step by step process, it is shown that by acting on the work environment of the company, the developers creative processes can be boosted and facilitated. It is also shown that both industrial engineering and creativity research have much to contribute to each other and future research topics in the field are presented.

show abstract

Freedom from constraints: Darkness and dim illumination promote creativity

Cited by 109 publications

References 67 publications

Improvisation facilitates divergent thinking and creativity: Realizing a benefit of primary school arts education.

Improvisation facilitates divergent thinking and creativity: Realizing a benefit of primary school arts education.

The SALIENT Checklist: Gathering up the Ways in Which Built Environments Affect What We Do and How We Feel

Facilities Planning for a Creative Company

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About