The Rule-follower’s Creative Block

This is my fourth document since yesterday. I have simply been unable to write. Staring at a blank document does not help, just as going to sleep does not. The only way, I concluded, to escape this immense boredom and monotony is to write about this exact emotion.

I do not have my personal workspace at the moment. I finish all my work at the dining table. It is usually cluttered, unless I am feeling particularly motivated. It is a small wooden dining table for four beside a small window. Sitting at the corner of my eye are some shriveled lavenders in a jar, picked a few days ago from our backyard.

I have not been outdoors in a week, and I have no good justification for it. I simply wake up, distractedly listen to classes, try to get some work done, and sleep. Eating has not been as exciting as it used to be, but I eat my fill. It is truly a challenge to write without a deadline or a prompt when I am in such a state.

However, there is one thing that keeps me going. I have been meeting new people online. Personality types I have never encountered in real life. I have been deliberately reaching out to different people to satiate my curiosity about the different ways in which people think. I am a rule-follower that lives in a family of artists. We do not live in conflict, but we do not share ideas either. As a student of psychology, I am trying to step into the shoes of these so called “intuitive” people.

I define these people as being the type who are constantly in thought of a number of things at once. One stream of thought may be about what to have for breakfast tomorrow, while another simultaneously running stream of thought may be about the enormous worm they found on their way to the market. What comes out of their mouth, of course, would simply be a question or two about the velocity of the Milky Way. If you think this is you, I am truly intrigued. Not all people are capable of this.

This generalization that I am making, and the term “intuitive” may bring to your mind the categorizations of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator or the MBTI. As fascinating and entertaining as the 16 personality types are, any person who has had an ounce of interest in the test would know that it is not scientifically valid. But of course, it is not baseless either. Amidst all the rising opposition towards the MBTI and pseudo-psychology in general, it would be interesting to shed some light on the Jungian cognitive functions that it is based on. Perhaps on another day.

Nevertheless, I have wondered if such an entanglement of thoughts is what leads to inspiration and random creativity. Linear thinking might not be conducive for anyone aspiring to be an artist. After all, following established manuals has not gotten us very far. I believe that true creativity cannot be achieved until a fair amount of rules are broken. What has coloring within the lines given us? A lot, of course. But not a lot of new things.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that recent research does exist on this topic. Petrou et al. (2020a) conducted two studies among employees in the Netherlands. They found that employees who are more prone to breaking rules felt creative, and were also perceived by others as being high in creativity. It was also found that creativity was higher when employees were in a work environment with high constraints, and when the task at hand was more demanding. In other words, breaking the rules for the purpose of solving a given problem would lead to more creative solutions than simply following the rules. It is an interesting finding, but not very surprising.

Imagine you are trying to become a vlogger on YouTube. Needless to say, organizational constraints on YouTube are extremely high, considering its frequent and often mistaken copyright claims and strikes. As becoming a monetized YouTuber would mean obtaining more than 4000 watch hours, the problem solving expectations are high as well. So what do you do? Simply following the rules will only give you a 50–50 chance of success. Perhaps even lower, when YouTubers have already found loopholes in its flawed algorithm and are using it to their advantage. A very simple example is clickbait. Have you clicked on a video expecting something and found out that the actual content was completely irrelevant? This is, mind you, against the YouTube community guidelines. But at the moment, the YouTube algorithm does not seem to have the ability to detect such a complex deception. In fact, when Pewdiepie clickbaits, it does not seem to even bother the audience. Many YouTubers have risen to fame by clickbaiting their way through. It is a breach of rules, but it is creative and it solves their problem. Of course, rule breaking and creativity doesn’t just apply in the workplace. Correlation is not causation, but rebellious people always seem to have creative solutions to get away from trouble.

Returning to the original point- true creativity cannot be achieved unless some rules are broken. So how do we break rules? We might associate rebelliousness with creativity. In some cases, the association may be valid. But it has been found that rebelliousness alone does not do much for creativity. A study has found that employees showed higher creativity when they were highly focused on promotion and were mildly rebellious (Petrou et al., 2020b). Unfortunately, existing research seems to center only around work settings. We seem to know very little about creativity outside the workspace, and so, answering the question at hand is difficult.

What we do understand from this, however, is that some rule-breaking is necessary. And this starts from our very own minds. The first step is to let our minds wander more freely rather than being bound by preconceived ideas. Why should you strictly stick to a presentation topic when you could take some humorous detours? Why should you only wear your Mickey Mouse cap at Disneyland? Why should you only color within the lines? Unfortunately, this is the most that my limited mind can question. Perhaps I should step out of my house and change my workspace.

For your reference:

Petrou, P., van der Linden, D. and Salcescu, O.C. (2020a). When Breaking the Rules Relates to Creativity: The Role of Creative Problem‐Solving Demands and Organizational Constraints. Journal of Creative Behavior, 54: 184–195. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.354

Petrou, P., van der Linden, D., Mainemelis, C. and Salcescu, O.C. (2020b). Rebel with a cause: When does employee rebelliousness relate to creativity?. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 93: 811–833. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12324