Learned Creativity and Variability

Beginning in the 1970’s, some psychologists began to criticize the use of rewards
to promote learning. Tangible rewards, as well as praise and attention,
they argued, could interfere with creativity, problem-solving ability, motivation,
and enjoyment. Fortunately, these concerns were allayed in the 1990’s
by careful research and examination of previous research, most notably that of Eisenberger and Judy Cameron. Together, they analyzed the results of
more than one hundred published studies on the effects of rewards and
found that in general, rewards increase interest, motivation, and performance.
The only situation in which rewards had detrimental effects was
when they were offered independently of performance. In other words,
giving “rewards” regardless of how the person does is bad for morale and interest.
Furthermore, several aspects of performance previously thought to be
beyond the domain of learning, such as creativity and even randomlike behavior,
have been demonstrated to be sensitive to consequences. Children
can learn to be creative in their drawing, in terms of the number of novel
pictures drawn, using rewards for novelty. Similarly, as shown by the work of
American psychologist Allen Neuringer and his colleagues, people and animals
alike can learn to engage in strings of unpredictable behavior that cannot
be distinguished from the random sort of outcomes generated by a random
number generator. This finding is particularly interesting given that this novel behavior has been found to generalize to new situations, beyond
the situation in which the learning originally occurred. Learned variability
has been demonstrated in dolphins, rats, pigeons, and humans, including
children with autism. Learning to be creative and to try new approaches has
important implications for many aspects of daily life and problem solving.