Do you want to be more creative? Observation skills may be the key to creativity, says new research

In new research, observation skills may be the key to improved creativity. The benefits of mindfulness, or being fully conscious and aware of one’s actions and surroundings, have been well documented by psychological scientists. Advantages include decreased risk of burnout at work, improved mental health, and smarter decision-making, according to recent studies. But now, researchers are turning their attention to a potential new connection: mindfulness and creativity.

University of Amsterdam researchers, led by psychological scientist Matthijs Baas, wanted to see whether there could be a link between creativity factors with various aspects of mindfulness, such as observation skills, attention with full awareness, and powers of description.

The creativity factors examined included: frequency of ideas, innovation, and flexibility of thinking. The researchers conducted four studies to explore whether, and how, these factors might be related to observation skills.

In the first study, Baas and colleagues looked at whether the ability to focus attention with full awareness (AWA) was related to the trait of creative ideation. They first used standard psychological tests to measure the general intelligence of student volunteers, as well as personality traits and attention levels. The researchers gave participants 4 minutes to come up with as many creative uses for a brick as possible. Experimenters rated each idea for originality.

The results showed that the students (participants) who scored higher on attention and awareness tended to have fewer new ideas and scored lower on originality.

But mindfulness is comprised of more components than just full awareness. In a second experiment, Baas and his collaborators tested how mindfulness factors such as observation skills, descriptive powers, and accepting without judgment (AWJ) influenced or were influenced by creativity. In an approach similar to the first experiment, they gave participants 2 minutes to type as many creative uses as possible for a tin can and rope.

Results showed that strong observation skills were linked to greater creativity, originality, and flexible thinking. Descriptive powers and AWJ had no measurable impact on creative achievements and original ideas. In other words, attention with full awareness, accepting without judgement, and being able to describe things generally drained participants of their creative abilities. Creativity was linked to observation – being aware of things and events around them: observing colour, shape, mood, beauty, aesthetics, movement, etc.

In two additional studies, the researchers continued to find that people with strong and continuous observation skills, whether inherent or learned through extensive training, showed superior creativity levels compared to other participants.

The results are reported in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

The potential links between observation and creativity require further research and exploration, but the research may have important implications for employers. Rather than a straightforward positive correlation, for example, Baas and colleagues’ studies show that only certain mindfulness traits are linked to increased creativity. If companies hope to increase their employees’ creative skills, these studies would suggest that they should focus on sharpening employees’ powers of observation rather than their attention with full awareness, which could have the unintended consequence of draining employees’ creative juices.

My Pakistani colleagues may remember my training workshops to improve their evaluation skills. I started the first session of the first week with an observation activity. Training participants were asked written closed questions about their entrance to the venue – what they saw and noticed – such as ‘how many steps were there in the front foyer?’ At the end of the week, unannounced, I conducted a second observation skills activity. All participants improved their observation scores – and skills during the week. Observation skills also improved their field work monitoring and evaluation tasks and reports.

As I said to my colleagues, paraphrasing the Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes: ‘Don’t just see, observe!’ Sherlock Holmes, and this study, teaches us to be alert and mindful of our surroundings – not just to see with our eyes, but to observe with all of our senses, including our ‘sixth sense.’

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/minds-business/observation-skills-may-be-key-ingredient-to-creativity.html#.WSPc9Bhh2u4

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).