those who were made to walk around a rectangular path, showed significantly higher scores in a battery of creativity tests, including a divergent thinking task—we saw these in Chapter 4, on problem solving. The researchers asked participants to generate as many uses as they could for an everyday object—in this case chopsticks. Sample answers that indicate divergent thinking included using them as drumsticks, as a conductor’s baton, as a child’s magic wand, as a coffee stirrer, or to toast marshmallows. You get the idea. And the researchers found that simply walking around outside enabled a
...more
