The Balancing Act: An Empirical Study Introducing and Removing Constraints in Idea Generation

• Published in: Psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts creativity, and the arts, 2022-11, Vol.16 (4), p.665-678
• Main Authors: Damadzic, Adam, Medeiros, Kelsey
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Brainstorming; Creativity; Empirical Methods; Female; Football; Human; Human performance; Ideation; Innovation; Leadership; Male; Marketing; Test Construction; Theory of constraints
• ISSN: 1931-3896; 1931-390X
• DOI: 10.1037/aca0000355

To stay competitive in today's economy, organizational leaders are making creativity and innovation a key business priority. As such, organizations and scholars have become increasingly interested in how to manage constraints during the creative process. There are 2 primary schools of thought pertaining to the relationship between constraints and creativity. Traditionally, constraints are thought to inhibit creativity. However, an emerging line of work suggests that constraints may, in fact, facilitate creative performance. To address the debate around the role of constraints in creative efforts, the present effort examined how adjusting "constraindness" influenced creative performance. To test this, participants were asked to design a marketing campaign for a NCAA Division 1 football program and were presented with constraints at multiple time points during the idea generation process. Results revealed that the introduction of constraints early on during the idea generation phase may be beneficial to creative endeavors but being overly constrained may hinder creative performance. This work adds to a growing body of literature regarding the constraint-creativity relationship and provides insight to practitioners regarding how best to use and manage constraints for optimal creative performance.