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REAL LIFE NEWS: THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX CAN'T BE DONE FROM INSIDE THE BOX

by Hazed

Here's a strange study that seems to have been designed purely as a play on words - but might have implications for the way offices are laid out.

Psychologists have discovered that thinking outside the box is actually much more difficult if you are actually, literally, inside a box.

They ran a series of experiments to measure the abilities of their test subjects to think creatively. Some of the participants carried out the tests while sitting inside a cardboard box measuring five foot by five foot; the rest were... wait for it... outside the box.

The outsiders scored significantly better than the box-sitters. Angela Leung of Singapore Management University said: "We may consider getting away from Dilbert's cubicles and creating open office spaces to free up our minds."

The team went on to test other favorite buzzwords from the world of work, to see if they had any effect on people's performance. And whatdya know, they did, as the report states:

In another experiment, some participants were asked to join the halves of cut-up coasters before taking a test — a physical representation of "putting two and two together." People who acted out the metaphor displayed more convergent thinking, a component of creativity that requires bringing together many possible answers to settle on one that will work. Other experiments found that walking freely generated more original ideas than walking in a set line; another found truth in "on the [one] hand; on the other hand."

This sounds totally bizarre but I suppose it shows that the human mind can be influenced by the strangest things.

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/25/outside_the_box_inside_the_box/

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