Foster Creativity

Wu and colleagues determined that working in groups of different sizes often has different outcomes. Their results confirm the value of design that supports teams of various sizes. The investigators found that when they analyzed “more than 65 million papers, patents and software products that span the period 1954-2014 . . . smaller teams have tended to disrupt science and technology with new ideas and opportunities, whereas larger teams have tended to develop existing ones. . . .

Design can inspire awe, via size or skill in execution/workmanship, for example.  New research by Rudd and her team builds on previous studies detailing the benefits of feeling awed: “this research explores how the emotion of awe might motivate a consumer to partake . . . in experiential creation (i.e., activities in which they actively produce an outcome) by enhancing their willingness to learn. Across eight experiments, experiencing awe . . . increases people’s likelihood of choosing an experiential creation gift (vs.