Boredom and Creativity Most of us think of being bored at work as a negative experience, but a new study suggests it can have positive results including an increase in creativity because it gives us time to daydream. That is the finding of Dr. Sandi Mann from the University of Central Lancashire. Dr. Mann conducted two studies. In the first experiment, 40 people were asked to carry out a boring task. They were told to copy numbers out of a telephone directory for 15 minutes. After that they were asked to complete another task. A pair of cups were given to each of them. Everyone tried to come up with different uses of the cups, and was given a chance to display their creativity. Meanwhile, another group of 40 people were just asked to come up with uses for the cups without doing any boring tasks before. It turned out that the 40 people who had first copied out the telephone numbers were more creative than the control group(对照组). To see if daydreaming was a factor in this effect, a second boring task was introduced that allowed even more daydreaming than the boring writing task. This second study saw 30 people copying out the numbers as before, but also included a second group of 30 reading rather than writing them. Again the researchers found that the people in the control group were least creative, but the people who had just read the names were more creative than those who had to write them out. This suggests that more passive boring activities, like reading or perhaps attending meetings, can lead to more creativity. Compared with reading, writing reduced the scope（范围） for daydreaming. As a result, it reduces the effects of boredom on creativity. Dr. Mann says: “Boredom at work has always been seen as something to be avoided, but perhaps we should accept it in order to promote our creativity. What we want to do next is to see what the practical implications of this finding are. Do people who are bored at work become more creative in other areas of their work -- or do they go home and write novels?” 小题1:Who proved to be the most creative in the two studies?
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