THE INS AND OUTS OF THE CONSTRAINT- CREATIVITY RELATIONSHIP
Year: 2018
Editor: Elies Dekoninck, Andrew Wodehouse, Chris Snider, Georgi Georgiev, Gaetano Cascini
Author: Marnina Eden Herrmann, Gabriela Goldschmidt, Ella Miron-Spektor
Series: ICDC
Section: ZIBALDONE
Page(s): 160-167
ISBN: 978-1-904670-97-1
Abstract
In today’s increasingly complex world, designers and other practitioners are required to tackle problems creatively while adhering to an ever-growing list of constraints. Existing research on the constraint-creativity relationship reveals mixed findings, with some studies suggesting that constraints can hinder creativity, and others showing that constraints can enhance creativity. Most studies that look at this relationship examine the impact of the type or severity of the constraint on creativity leaving us with many questions about the less studied factors that can moderate this relationship. In our study 62 industrial engineering students completed a design-ideation task that measured the impact of constraints on creativity. Our data shows that self-imposed constraints are beneficial to creativity relative to external constraints, providing empirical evidence of the benefits of self-imposed constraints.
Keywords: Creativity, Constraints, Design Process