Since the 1970s, thinking outside the box has been a popular metaphor for unconventional and original (i.e., creative) thinking. The assumption is that developing our ability to think outside the box will help us transcend our mental limitations.
First let’s consider the “box.” Maybe you’re already familiar with it. If not, here’s a brief history. The box, also referred to as “the Nine Dot problem,” seems to have made its first appearance in a 1914 puzzle book as Christopher Columbus’s Egg Puzzle. Whether the nine items are eggs or dots, the challenge is to connect all of them by drawing four straight lines without retracing any lines or removing your pencil from the paper. The solution requires you to extend your lines outside the invisible boundary of the “box” created by the nine dots.
Its first use by a psychologist, N.R.F. Maier, was in 1930. J.P. Guilford then incorporated it into his studies on creativity in the 1970s, at which point it gained great popularity as it spread in many directions, including business, the arts, self-help, and psychology, among others. For the ensuing decades, it’s application as a metaphor for being innovative and thinking creatively wasn’t questioned.
Something interesting about the Nine Dot puzzle-as-metaphor is that knowing what the solution is—that you need to extend your lines outside the “box”—does not significantly affect people’s ability to solve the problem. Simply encouraging people to think outside the box has been proven to be ineffective.
The concept is problematic on more than one account. For one thing, it’s subjective. A solution or an idea that seems unconventional or innovative to me may not seem so to you or to anyone else. And just because an idea is creative or unconventional doesn’t automatically mean it’s preferable or valuable or viable.
The fact that we can imagine something does not prove that it is possible. —Julian Baggini, The Ego Trick
But the biggest problem with thinking outside the box—and the reason it’s a myth—is that we can’t actually do it. The box in question is the mental model that’s created, maintained, and updated by the unconscious part of our brain. We are always inside the box, in one compartment or another; therefore, we can’t think outside it.
Some theorists on the subject claim that insight is the result of thinking outside the box, but it isn’t. No matter how mind-blowing they may be, our insights still depend on what’s already in our particular box. It seems obvious, when you consider it, that someone whose mental model includes a vast amount of experience and knowledge in a particular area is likely to have more and bigger creative insights than someone else who only dabbles in the field.
The fact that we can’t think outside the box isn’t bad news. In fact, if you’ve ever felt stymied by the prospect, you may be relieved to find out you’re not missing anything. Of course, you may still want to be more creative or innovative. If so, come to the next MONTHLY MEETING OF THE MIND (& BRAIN) because that’s precisely what we’ll be exploring.