Training to Generate Creative Metaphors by Reviving Dormant Analogies

MAXIMO TRENCH; RICARDO MINERVINO

CREATIVITY RESEARCH JOURNAL

Routledge/Taylor & Francis

Año: 2015 vol. 27 p. 188 - 197

1040-0419

Most creativity techniques encourage breaking away from stored knowledge and known solutions. Counter to this approach, the present study assessed the effectiveness of an intervention based on introducing minimal variations to well-established knowledge structures. Participants of two groups were tasked with generating creative metaphorical titles for short essays. While the experimental group had been trained in extending and reinstantiating conceptual metaphors (Lakoff & Turner, 1989), the control group had been trained on creativity techniques unrelated to the task. Training increased the number of novel metaphorical titles derived from conceptual metaphors, and these titles were more creative than novel metaphorical titles not derived from conceptual metaphors. Finally, the titles generated via the deliberate use of the trained heuristics were as creative as those of the same type that were spontaneously produced by the control group. The implications of these results for interventions to promote creativity are discussed.