Cyber Monday Sale! 50% Off All Access

You Can Boost Your Creativity by Imagining You're Someone Else Break out of a rut by giving another persona a try.

By Nina Zipkin

Shutterstock

Do you feel like you are creatively blocked? Well, we have a solution for you: psychological halloweenism.

No, you're not going to wear orange and black, play the Monster Mash and try to figure out the Wolfman's childhood trauma. Well, you could, but you might get some weird looks.

Psychological halloweenism is a term that Harvard Medical School professor, author and NeuroBusiness Group CEO Srini Pillay came up with to describe the action of trying on a different identity or perspective to get you thinking in a more creative way.

Related: Creatively Blocked? These 20 Founders Share Their Most Effective Strategies.

In a recent piece in Harvard Business Review, Pillay cites a study with a group of college students from last winter conducted by researchers Denis Dumas and Kevin Dunbar. The psychologists told one third of the participants to imagine they were eccentric poets and had another third pretend that they were rigid librarians. They compared the results of these categories to a control group that just behaved as they normally would.

Dumas and Dunbar gave the students the names of 10 run-of-the-mill objects, things such as book, carrot, fork, pants and shovel. The students then had two minutes to say what each object was used for before moving onto the next in the queue on the computer screen.

Related: I Took an Improv Training Course -- and It Changed How I Brainstorm

It turns out that pretending to be a creative person actually made people more innovative.

"We found that when participants took on an uninhibited stereotype (i.e., eccentric poet) both their fluency and originality was significantly enhanced," Dumas and Dunbar wrote.

So the next time you feel stuck, give psychological halloweenism a try and pretend to be your favorite artist or fictional mad scientist.

Nina Zipkin

Entrepreneur Staff

Staff Writer. Covers leadership, media, technology and culture.

Nina Zipkin is a staff writer at Entrepreneur.com. She frequently covers leadership, media, tech, startups, culture and workplace trends.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Business News

Elon Musk Still Isn't Getting His Historically High Pay as CEO of Tesla — Here's Why

A second shareholder vote wasn't enough to convince Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick.

Leadership

Leadership vs. Management: How to Understand the Difference and 6 Ways to Bridge the Gap

Here are the key differences between leadership and management, highlighting their complementary roles and providing six strategies to develop managers into future leaders.

Legal

How Do You Stop Porch Pirates From Stealing Christmas? These Top Tips Will Help Secure Your Deliveries.

Over 100 million packages were stolen last year. Here are top tips to make sure your stuff doesn't get swiped.

Growing a Business

Her Restaurant Business Is Worth $100 Million — Here's Her Unconventional Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Pinky Cole, founder of Slutty Vegan, talks about going from TV producer to restaurant owner, leaning into failure and the value of good PR.

Business News

'Something Previously Impossible': New AI Makes 3D Worlds Out of a Single Image

The new technology allows viewers to explore two-dimensional images in 3D.

Business News

Tesla Cybertruck Factory Workers Reportedly Told 'You Do Not Need to Report to Work' for 3 Days This Week

According to a memo first viewed by Business Insider, Tesla factory workers in Austin were reportedly told to stay home Tuesday through Thursday.