Boredom at work increases creativity
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Someone in the workplace does not have to be bored, because there is simply no time to do it, because things happen to be notorious and it is difficult to finish everything until the end of the work day. Well, there are also such workers who are simply exhausted from melancholy and unemployment due to various circumstances. Some scientists believe that boredom at the workplace fuels the epidemic of obesity, because when there is nothing to do, then tea, coffee and delicacies at least minimally brighten the working days of an unoccupied worker. Other experts argue that boredom and a complete lack of desire to continue working can lead to stress and even depression. However, British scientists are rushing to calm down all workers, tired of their own boredom, because, in their opinion, boring work can enhance the creativity of a person who, in such a "dreary" state, is able to find new ways to solve the task and to approach tasks more creatively.
Experts say that this is not surprising, because when a person is not busy, he has time to dream and just think.
The research results of scientists are presented at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society, and the lead authors of the study are Dr. Sandy Mann and Rebekka Kadman from the University of Central Lancashire.
Dr. Mann and Cadman conducted two experiments involving forty people. In the first experiment, volunteers were asked to rewrite telephone numbers from the telephone directory within fifteen minutes, and then asked to come up with as many methods of using plastic tubes as possible. Before the task with plastic tubes, the control group did not perform monotonous work. As it turned out, the first group of participants coped with the second task more creatively and showed more creativity than the participants in the control group.
To be convinced of the correctness of their conclusions, the scientists decided to repeat the experiment, only this time they involved more people and created three groups. One of them again received the task to rewrite the numbers before the next task with the tubes, the second group was asked to just read all the numbers written in the telephone directory, and the third, the control group, started the task with the tubes right away.
The results were the same as in the first experiment, with the only difference that people who reread phone numbers showed a better result than those who copied them. As well as in vulgar times, the control group showed the worst result.
Therefore, as we see from the results of experiments conducted by scientists, the monotonous and boring the work, the higher the creativity of a person and the greater the growth of his creative abilities.
"Employers do not accept boredom in the workplace as such, in their opinion, the employee must be loaded from the beginning of the working day to the end. But, perhaps, the bored worker will be able to throw just a brilliant idea or solve the task, looking at it in a new way and, thus, will do more good than exhausted and exhausted, - say the researchers. "At least, the results of our experiments testify to this exactly."
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