Creativity
Does an hour in total darkness make people more creative?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
People who had just spent over an hour doing everyday activities in total darkness scored lower, not higher, on a creativity test than people who did the same activities in daylight.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — Between-subjects field comparison: 'dialogue in the dark' (activities in total darkness led by blind guides) vs the same activities in a park in daylight; creativity tested immediately afterwards. Groups were recruited at different places rather than randomly assigned.
- N
- N=133 · Study 2 (the experiment): 133 sighted adults, 71 in the darkness group and 62 in the lit control group. Study 1 was a separate descriptive sample of 30 adults who only did the darkness experience.
- Population
- Sighted Italian adult volunteers in Milan
- Outcome
- Divergent thinking on the Torrance 'unusual uses of a box' task (fluency, flexibility, originality, elaboration); also positive/negative affect and personal impact of the event
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Key findings
The darkness experience was rated as far more unusual, unexpected, involving and intense, and it produced more positive mood and higher ratings on several 'this changed me' items. Despite that, the darkness group performed significantly worse than the control group on all four creativity scores. Controlling for openness to experience and need for closure did not remove this difference.
Methodology
In a first study, 30 adults rated how unusual and intense the 'dialogue in the dark' experience was, and two weeks later how much it had affected them. In the main study, 133 adults either did the darkness experience (walking on grass, playing ball, tasting spices, guided by blind people) or the same activities in a park in daylight. Straight afterwards everyone listed unusual uses for a cardboard box for 10 minutes and filled in mood and life-impact questionnaires.
Limitations
Participants were not randomly assigned: the darkness group was recruited at the Institute of the Blind and the control group through social media, so the groups may differ in ways that were not measured. Creativity was measured only once, immediately after an intense experience, so the result may reflect fatigue or cognitive overload rather than a lasting effect; the authors call for follow-ups after a week and a month. The paper does not report effect sizes for the creativity differences, and the control activity was not an established format like the darkness experience.
How this study connects
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