Book chapter summary - Stimulating Creativity, Chapter IX: Stimulating Hypothesis Formation, by Morris I. Stein

What I read

In Chapter 9 of the book Stimulating Creativity, Stein focuses first on describing the qualities that support hypothesis generation (hypothesis is used in Stein’s work as “idea” is commonly used today—coming up with different hypotheses vs coming up with different ideas).

He first briefly references Leonardo da Vinci and Ludwig Borne, finding that both suggest coming up with lots of ideas on the way to selecting one idea. Externalization is common, as is breaking a problem space or solution space into variables, pieces, and attributes. Creators are urged to lower expectations during this process and silence inner critique. They are also told to set aside pre-conceived ideas of how things are in the world, that have been driven by their life experiences in the world. And, hypothesis generation requires questioning and perhaps reframing the initial problem statement that was given or embraced.

Several framings of this creative process are then presented, including perception, language, inspiration, and intuition.

Stein introduces the word physiognomic as he describes the role of perception in coming up with creative ideas. This indicates that “how objects are perceived depends on the motor and affective attitudes of the person.” He further explains this through example, referencing how Kandinsky anthropomorphized raindrops as he viewed them, and Stein describes this as a primitive form of perception. He cites Hartmann as explaining this primitive as “regression in service of the ego”—that recasting (regressing) a view of the world around, which might be seen as childish, it becomes mature and professional when used to the advantage of accomplishment. Stein explains this through the idea of “being childlike” vs “being childish,” with the first being a useful way of being creative. He describes that he developed a technique called the “Physiognomic Cue Test” which is then used to generate empirical data related to creativity, and draws a conclusion that there is evidence that this form of physiognomic perception is related to creativity.

Next, Stein discusses how people leverage language to make sense of the world around them. Creative people expand their vocabulary to expand the range of creative concepts available, and recognize that naming things solidifies them, so treating words as flexible makes things around us flexible for creative exploration. Stein recommends shifting from naming things (nouns) to naming the actions we do with the thing (verbs), in order to leave room for recasting the object itself in new ways. He cites how Gordon uses the word synectics to describe this purposeful shifting from object to action. Children use this form of thinking regularly, while adults have been socialized to avoid this form of regression.

Stein next briefly discusses the role of inspiration, indicating that there has been little scientific study of this part of creativity, largely because it occurs at a given moment, and being there to absorb it would only be by chance. This inspiration is not a random activity that occurs for anyone, though; expertise leads to relaxation, and “unconscious” ideas come to the surface.

He finishes this section by describing intuition, and indicates that it too is lacking formal and scientific study, although Bruner is cited as believing intuition can be taught. Stein describes one of only a few studies he is aware of related to intuition. The study concludes with five findings, all related to how much information someone needs in order to solve a problem. He describes another study that concludes that “conventional measures of scholastic aptitude are ‘significantly but not profoundly related to intuitive thinking.’” Other studies are referenced, and Stein’s conclusion related to intuition is that intuition is valuable, and should be used in the creative process.

The remainder of the paper focuses on what Stein calls “Self-Help techniques”, which are methods used to generate hypotheses (ideas). These include:

Brainstorming. Referencing Osborn, Stein describes the rules of brainstorming to include that criticism is avoided, a focus is on quantity over quality, “Free wheeling” is encouraged, and so is the idea of building on or altering ideas that emerge.

Morphological Analysis. Stein references Dr. Fritz Zwicky as creating this method, which is about formalizing a problem into small pieces and parameters, visualizing them in a conceptual problem space of a square or a cube, and then addressing each of the various combinations that emerge. Stein also references Allen, who has productized this method into a series of steps, and appears to sell the product as a way for people to be more creative. Stein references that this method spirals out of control given the number of attributes that are considered, as the idea combinations grow exponentially.

Attribute Listing. Citing Crawford, Stein describes that this method focuses first on identifying the attributes of a product or idea, and then modifying each of the attributes in turn without critiquing the output. Not all attributes are equally important, and so to save time, emphasis is placed on the attribute that is most original to the product or idea.

Checklists. Stein references Whiting as the primary source of this method. Whiting proposes a generalized checklist, that includes nine categories, like Adapt? Modify? Magnify? Minify?

Forced Relationships. Whiting is also credited as developing techniques related to forcing disconnected ideas into a combination; this is best used when looking for ideas in a broad area, such as when developing a cartoon or advertising copy. This is free-association.

PakSA, referring to PackCorp Scientific Approach. Stein cites J. W. Taylor in developing this method, which proposed pragmatic steps: Pick a problem, Get knowledge, Organize knowledge, Refine knowledge, Digest, Produce ideas, Re-Work ideas, Put ideas to work, Repeat the process.

Input-Output Technique, developed at GE. This method looks at the output of a problem’s solution, and then the input; then, all of the possible “middle pieces” are considered and listed, and then the best one is selected.

Use of the Ridiculous. Stein cites Von Fange as proposing that creativity is enhanced by focusing on the most ridiculous or unexpected idea in a list.

Modification. Whiting again is cited as proposing that making a slight modification to an existing idea produces a new idea.

The “Fresh Eye.” Whiting, again, is referenced as showing the value of “finding beauty in an object.” Nothing else is said about this method.

In the last part of this chapter, Stein describes that each of these methods ends in the selection of the “Good” or “Best” possibility, but there is no real data to support or show how this selection is made. He indicates that this part of the process, like intuition, is a mystique, and is often driven by gut feel.

What I learned and what I think

I’m of many minds about this chapter.

Responding to the beginning, which establishes a four part structure or frame for thinking of idea generation, makes sense to me. These parts—perception, language, inspiration and intuition—seem consistent with my experiences. Language in particular has always been fundamental to my creative process, specifically on trying to avoid nouning things, and letting myself play with words and ideas in a way that might be seen as silly, but always results in my ability to sort of “look around” an idea space. Pelle Ehn describes some of this as “Language Games”, and I need to revisit that writing to better contextualize it with this. I haven’t heard the term synectics before and I want to better understand that.

Something missing here is the context and environment of the frame. What about in a corporate environment, or in the privacy of a studio, or with a friend, or with someone who doesn’t “get it”? That seems as important as the four big framing elements, as it dictates how “crazy” ideas can be while still being considered rigorous or valid. At frog, we sometimes ran into the problem of using forced provocation with completely abstract or random ideas, and having those workshop sessions not being taken seriously by executives. Additionally, the externalities of pressure, and “looking good” to the boss, have to shape the creative process just as much as perception, inspiration, and so-on.

Stein sort of explains away intuition and inspiration, mostly because there haven’t been a lot of empirical studies of these phenomena. If this form of study is valuable (and I’m still really skeptical about that value), surely there’s a way to study it, just as with the other ideas. But those other studies seem so far removed from reality, that maybe it isn’t possible. Study methods like sorting shapes on a card into piles is so far away from the reality of creativity in life that I think it’s probably not very useful at all (although I believe in what Stein pulls out of those methods.)

The part of this chapter that has me all fired up, though, is the self-help part. As an aside, I find it both great and ridiculous that it’s titled self-help, and I think maybe Stein does too, because of the way he introduces the section (“The reader is told that his untapped creative potential can be unleashed by practicing the techniques described.”) This is a section of methods, and I have a really blob-like relationship with method.

Some of the specific methods are familiar and “work”, in as much as the goal is to “come up with crazy ideas” or to do what we might consider broad creative work. This is the stuff of workshops: the free wheeling in brainstorming, the forced relationships to come up with weird and silly results. These methods help people feel creative, and give people permission to challenge pre-existing norms about how things are and how they could be. A method is good in that it is prescriptive and easy to follow, and somewhat ironically, it provides a rigid way to explore non-rigid ideas.

Some of the methods are just variations on the same theme, and involve rigorously producing lots of ideas. Many of these are presented in the silly way of the introduction to Dead Poet’s Society: plot this on that axis, and that on this axis, and then shade the middle and out pops literature. It’s a way to “science” a creative process, like in engineering. Maybe it’s effective, but it sure is boring.

But all of the methods are just methods, and if the goal of Stein’s research is to understand creativity, I don’t think method is really what he means, or what I mean. If we’re talking “Genius” creativity, this isn’t where a Van Gogh is coming from. If we’re talking incremental creativity, like is done on a design project, we don’t really do this, either. When designers get to a point where they really can be creative as a job, it’s because of the tacit way we can make things, not because we’re following a checklist. It’s the tacitness that maybe I’m finding myself more interested in, when I think about “why are some people creative”. And I may be back to craft and expertise, rather than free wheeling ideation sessions.

Whiting comes up a lot in this chapter, but looks really thin; I’ll skip that for now. I want to pursue something like Hartmann’s work describing “regression to the ego,” or Gordon’s synectics.