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When asked to “think outside the box,” students in a experimental research study scored better when they were literally outside a box. In the experiment, students were seated inside or outside a five-by-five-foot cardboard box. A third group sat in an adjacent room with no box at all. In all other ways, the work environments were similar. Each person completed a word-association test widely used to test creativity. Subjects who sat outside the box performed better than those inside the box or those sitting in a room with no box.

The cardboard box experiment was one of several developed by a team of researchers from Singapore Management University, the University of Michigan and Cornell University. They set out to explore metaphors about creative thinking, such as:

• Put two and two together
• Think outside the box
• On the one hand, then on the other hand

According to the study authors, “These metaphors suggest a connection between concrete bodily experiences and creative cognition.” Would creative problem-solving improve if people acted out a metaphor about creativity before attempting to generate new ideas or connections between ideas?

In one 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 if participants were required to walk in a prescribed, straight line.

“Having a leisurely walk outdoors or freely pacing around may help us break our mindset,” says study author, Angela Leung. “Also, we may consider getting away from Dilbert’s cubicles and creating open office spaces to free up our minds.”

The study, Embodied Metaphors and Creative Acts, is slated for publication in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Learn more:

Association for Psychological Science press release: To “Think Outside the Box,” Think Outside the Box

Link to study: Embodied Metaphors and Creative Acts,  Angela Leung, Suntae Kim, Evan Polman, Lay See Ong, Lin Qiu, Jack Goncalo and Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Psychological Science