can Priming Spatial Distance Improve Children’s Ability to Innovate Tools?

• In Event: Creativity in Childhood: Contexts and Conditions That Foster Children’s Creativity and Innovative Abilities

Abstract

According to Construal Level Theory, psychological distance encourages abstract thought, which promotes creativity. Six- to 9-year-olds who received distancing priming (viewing pictures of proximal through to distant objects e.g. a school desk to the Milky Way), performed better on a creativity measure compared to children who received proximity priming (same pictures in the reverse order. Liberman, Polack, Hameiri & Blumenfeld, 2012). Tool-innovation tasks require children to think creatively about how to modify tools to solve a problem, thus, performance may be improved by distance priming. We explored whether performance on the Hooks Task, a tool innovation task in which children need to bend a wire into a hook to retrieve a bucket from a tall tube (Beck, Williams, Cutting, Apperly and Chappell, 2016), is improved by distance priming.

In Experiment 1, we primed spatial distance by showing 5- to 7-year-olds (N = 98) pictures of increasingly distal objects (school desk to the Milky Way, Distancing prime) or increasingly proximal objects (Milky Way to school desk, Proximal prime). Children completed the Hooks Task and a creativity task adapted from the Tel Aviv Creativity Test (TACT), counterbalanced. Six-to 7-year-olds’ performance on the Hooks Task was significantly better when they saw a distancing prime (p=.042). No significant effects of priming were found on the creativity test.

In Experiment 2, we sought to replicate our findings and add a baseline condition. Six- to 7-year-olds (N = 56) completed the Hooks task following a distance prime, proximal prime or in a baseline condition where the priming images were presented in random order. Children performed significantly better on the Hooks Task in the distancing condition compared to the proximal condition (p=<.001) and baseline (p=.017).

In follow up studies, we investigated whether something other than spatial distance might be influencing children’s performance. In Experiment 3, 6- to 7-year-olds saw a distancing prime or saw a set of predictable pictures (all familiar animals) or unpredictable (varied objects, e.g. cat, tree, gloves, tent). However, this manipulation made no difference to children’s performance, which appeared to be relatively good. We speculated that children’s mood may be improved by some primes and this improved performance. In Experiment 4, 5- to 7-year-olds saw a distancing prime, or were given a positive (describe something that makes you happy) or neutral (describe a water bottle). We also included a baseline condition. Once again, children in the distancing condition out performed other conditions (highest p=.042).

We conclude that distance priming appears to be an effective way to drive improved performance on a subsequent measure of tool innovation, but its mechanism is not fully understood. Experiment 3 results where children performed as well when primed with sets of familiar objects (whether predictable or unpredictable) suggests that distance is not the only way to improve innovative thinking. We discuss implications and directions for future research.

Authors

• Sarah Beck, University of Birmingham
  Presenting Author

• Clare Whalley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Louise E Bunce
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarbjit Lagaha
  Non-Presenting Author