Alice Isen and her colleagues (1987), at Cornell University, conducted an experiment to see if they could improve students’ success at this problem by altering their mood. In one experiment, some of the students watched a five-minute clip from a slapstick comedy film before being presented with the problem, while others saw five minutes of a serious film about mathematics and still others saw no film. The results were dramatic. Seventy five percent of those who saw the comedy film, compared to only 20 per cent and 13 per cent of those in the other two groups, respectively, solved the problem successfully. Just five minutes of a comedy film, which had nothing to do with the candle problem, made the problem solvable for most participants (View Highlight)
The overriding result of the whole set of experiments was this: Anything that Amabile did that would seem to increase the incentive to be creative had the effect of reducing creativity. In experiment after experiment, the most creative products were produced by those who were in the non-incentive condition—the ones who believed their products were not going to be evaluated (View Highlight)
Sadly, our system of schooling—where motivation is induced by threat of failure—tends to mute the playful mode and amplify the fearful one. By doing so, schools interfere with creative and critical thinking (View Highlight)