creativity (in terms of how useful they were), when

compared to the control (nonboring) conditio n. These

ﬁndings contradict those of Study 1, which found that

level of creativity did not signiﬁcantly increa se after

the reading boring task and demonstrates the need for

more resear ch in the area.

Study 2 also introduced two new creative potential

tasks to investigate wheth er the type of creative task

makes a difference. In Tas k 2, the number of answers

(but not their level of creat ivity) did differ signiﬁ cantly

between the reading and wri ting conditions such that

more answ ers were produced in the reading condition.

This supports the idea that ﬂuency (or number of ideas)

does not necessa rily equate to originality and creativity

of those ideas because previous researchers (e.g., A.

Snyder, Mitchell, Bossamaier, & Palli er, 2004) have sug-

gested that adding more ideas within the same category,

is not necessa rily as c reative as add ing new categories. It

also lends some support to the hypothesis that boring

reading tasks facilitate more da ydreaming than boring

written tasks—and it is this daydreaming that leads to

an increa se in creativity. Both conditions also produced

signiﬁcantly more answers than in the control group.

Like in Task 1, these answers were signiﬁcantly more

creative in the two boring conditi ons than in the control

group. The use of Task 2 then, like Task 1, clearly

showed a link between boredom and creativity; Tasks

1 and 2, which were both creative uses or divergent

tasks, showed similar ﬁndings in that preceding them

with a boring task increa sed both the number of creative

answers and the level of creat ivity of those answers.

Task 3 was a totally different type of creative task

that could prod uce only right or wrong answers (a con-

vergent task). Here, only the reading bor ing task, and

not the written boring task, led to a signiﬁcant increase

the number of correct responses. This again lends

further support to the hypothesis that writing inhibits

daydreaming (Smallwoo d et al., 2006) and that day-

dreaming is a mediator of boredom and creativity

(e.g., Klinger 1987). It could be that daydream ing is

more signiﬁcant a factor in the stimu lation of creative

thoughts with convergent creative tasks than with the

divergent tasks; daydreaming might be more useful in

creative problem-solving tasks in which there are ﬁnite

solutions to be found, than in more imaginative creative

tasks wher e there are inﬁnite possible outcomes.

Implications of Study

The ﬁndings have implications for the way that bore-

dom is viewed both by society at large and by communi-

ties, su ch as within the work or education spheres. Until

recently, boredo m has been view ed as a negative emo-

tion with only negative outcomes , but these studies

add weight to the evidence that sugge sts that boredom

can sometimes be a force for good. Thi s means that it

might be a worthwhile enterprise to allow or even

embrace boredom in work, education, and leisure. On

an individual basis, if one is trying to solve a problem

or come up with creat ive solutions, the ﬁndings from

our studies suggest that undertaki ng a bor ing task

(especially a reading task) might help with coming up

with a more creative outcome.

Limitations and Imp lications for Future Research

Within the two studi es, there was one contradi ctory

ﬁnding; in Study 1, the level of creativity in the an swers

given did not increase (when compared with the control

group) follo wing the writing boredom task, but they did

when using the same task in Study 2. This suggests the

need for further replication using much larger numbers

of parti cipants. It would also be useful to explore the

role of daydream ing as a media tor of the proposed

boredom-creativity link further by more in-dept h mea-

surement of daydreaming during boring tasks followed

by regres sion techni ques.

It should also be considered that the method of

asking responden ts to select their own most creative

answers might be ﬂawed in that previous research has

suggested that individuals are poor at doing this; asking

independent raters to do this might have produced more

clarity in the results (Runco & Smith, 1992). There may

also have be en some confusion as how respon dents

selected their two responses reﬂecting the most creat ive

use of the cups and how these were subsequentl y rated

by the raters. Previou s studies ha ve simp ly used useful-

ness of the responses, so intr oducing the word term cre-

ative usefulness may have confused matters such that it

cannot be certain that the most useful responses were

being selec ted and rated, as oppose to the most creative

responses (which might not be the same thing) . Useful-

ness is con sidered by some to be more important than

creativity, as ideas that are bizarr e and impracti cal are

not always seen as evidence of creativity when compared

with ideas that have practical value (Zeng, Proctor, &

Salvendy, 2011).

Future studies could also examin e originali ty of

answers, which was alluded to in our studies but not

objectively measured, or other more objective measures

such as those enco mpass ed in A. Snyder et al.’s (2004)

creativity quotient , which incorporates both ﬂuency

and ﬂexibility of ideas. Zeng et al. (2011) reviewed a

range of DT measures of creative potential and

concluded that assessing appropriateness and novelty

are key.

A further important limitation in Study 2 was in the

temporal relation of the three creative tasks wi th the

boredom task. The bor edom task was carried out ﬁrst,

then Creative Task 1, then Creative Task 2, then

DOES BEING BORED MAKE US MORE CREATIVE?

171