in regard to problem solving functional fixedness solutions

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Functional Fixedness: Breaking Mental Models to Enhance Problem Solving

Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person’s ability to use objects only in the way they are traditionally used. Discovered by psychologist Karl Duncker, it represents the mental shortcuts that often prevent individuals from seeing potential innovative uses for common items.

Functional fixedness hinders problem-solving because it restricts awareness to an item’s most familiar function. Understanding functional fixedness aids in creatively developing innovative solutions.

Methods to reduce functional fixedness involve:

• Challenging assumptions about the usage of objects
• Increasing awareness of one’s own cognitive biases
• Practicing divergent thinking to broaden potential functions

Examples of Functional Fixedness

This phenomenon, although it can often be a useful heuristic saving us time on simple tasks, can impede more complex problem-solving and creativity by hindering the ability to see alternative uses for familiar items.

Common Examples

Hammer:  Traditionally used for driving nails into wood or other materials, a hammer can also serve as an impromptu paperweight or a tool for breaking ice, illustrating how its common use can overshadow potential alternative uses.

Candle-holder:  While designed to hold candles, candle-holders can also be utilized as decorative plant pots or holders for art supplies, showing that items often have utility beyond their common use.

Book of Matches:  Generally used for lighting fires, a book of matches can double as a makeshift notepad or a tool for leveling tables by placing matchsticks under uneven legs.

The Two-cords Problem

In 1951, Birch and Rabinowitz adopted Norman Maier’s (1930, 1931) two-cord problem, in which respondents were given two cords hanging from the ceiling and two heavy objects in the room. They are instructed to join the cords, but they are so far apart that one cannot readily reach the other.

The idea was to attach one of the heavy things to a cord and use it as a weight, swing the cord like a pendulum, catch the rope as it swung while holding on to the other rope, and then knot them together. The participants are divided into three groups: Group R, which completes a pretask of completing an electrical circuit with a relay, Group S, which completes the circuit with a switch, and Group C, which receives no pretest experience.

Participants in Group R were more likely to use the switch as the weight, whereas those in Group S were more likely to utilize the relay. Both groups did so because their prior experience had taught them to use the objects in a specific way, and functional fixedness prevented them from seeing the objects as being used for a different purpose.

Barometer Question

The barometer question is an example of a poorly conceived examination question that demonstrates functional fixedness and puts the examiner in a moral bind. The classic form of the question, popularized by American test designer professor Alexander Calandra, requested the student to “show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer?”

The examiner was certain that there was just one correct response. Contrary to the examiner’s expectations, the student provided a succession of radically diverse responses. These responses were also correct, but none of them demonstrated the student’s proficiency in the academic field being tested.

Calandra presented the incident as a real-life, first-person experience that occurred during the Sputnik crisis. Calandra’s essay, “Angels on a Pin”, was published in 1959 in Pride, a magazine of the American College Public Relations Association.

Influence of Age and Experience

In young children, problem-solving skills are in the early stages of development. They tend to view objects in a variety of ways, which can lead to less functional fixedness.

Studies demonstrate that 5-year-old children are more likely to find innovative ways to use an object, as their knowledge base is less rigidly defined compared to adults. An interesting research pointed out that age is a determinant in avoiding functional fixedness, noting that as children grow, there is an increased likelihood of applying objects in traditional manners due to the accumulation of knowledge.

Changes Over Lifespan

As individuals age, their wealth of experience often translates into a double-edged sword when it comes to functional fixedness. On one side, prior knowledge can streamline problem-solving processes, allowing for efficient utilization of common objects in their typical roles.

Conversely, this same knowledge can inhibit creative thinking, making it more challenging to perceive alternative uses for familiar items. The balance between experience-induced proficiency and creativity can shift at various stages throughout the lifespan, suggesting a complex interaction between age-related cognitive development and functional fixedness.

Cultural Experience

Scholars have also conducted investigations to determine whether culture has an impact on this bias. One recent study found preliminary evidence supporting the universality of functional fixedness.

The study’s goal was to see if people from non-industrialized countries, notably those who had little exposure to “high-tech” objects, exhibited functional fixedness. The Shuar, hunter-horticulturalists from Ecuador’s Amazon region, were evaluated and compared to a control group from an industrial civilization.

The Shuar community had only been exposed to a small number of “low-tech” industrialized artifacts, such as machetes, axes, cooking pots, nails, shotguns, and fishhooks. Two tasks were devised for the experiments.

• The box task, in which participants had to build a tower to help a character from a fictional storyline reach another character with a limited set of varied materials
• The spoon task, in which participants were also given a problem to solve based on a fictional story of a rabbit who had to cross a river (materials were used to represent settings) and they were given a spoon.

In the box-task, participants were slower to select the materials than participants in control conditions, but no difference in time to solve the problem was seen. In the spoon task, participants were slower in selection and completion of task.

Individuals from non-industrial (“technologically sparse cultures”) were found to be vulnerable to functional fixedness. They used items without priming faster than when the design function was communicated to them.

This occurred despite the fact that participants had less exposure to industrialized made artifacts and that the few artifacts they currently use were used in a variety of ways regardless of their design.

Methods to Overcome Functional Fixedness

Cognitive flexibility refers to the ability to adjust one’s thinking and adapt to new, unexpected situations. To enhance cognitive flexibility , one can engage in activities that challenge the brain’s existing patterns. This can include puzzles that require considering objects in unconventional ways, or brainstorming sessions that focus on the generation of alternative solutions. Research suggests that pushing beyond traditional uses of an object can reduce functional fixedness, as mentioned in a study on meaning training.

To promote cognitive flexibility:

• Uncommitting from previous ideas: Encourage the consideration of new, unfamiliar methods instead of relying on tried and tested solutions.
• Divergent Thinking: Implement unconventional uses for everyday objects to break away from their typical functions.

Promoting Divergent Thinking

This is a thought process used to break through mental blocks and generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. To foster atypical thinking, individuals can undertake exercises that promote ideation without immediate judgment or restraint.

Techniques such as free writing, mind mapping, or the brainstorming method called “worst possible idea” can help deter the fixation brought on by functional fixedness. Encouraging the pursuit of novelty and diversity in thought opens up the potential for multiple viable solutions to emerge, addressing the functional fixedness issue highlighted in relation to the survival-processing paradigm.

Strategies include:

• Open brainstorming sessions: Allocate time specifically for free-form idea generation, where all suggestions are considered without criticism.
• Encouraging ‘what if’ scenarios: Regularly practicing to think about different scenarios where objects can have alternative functions or uses.

Uncommiting

In a 1996 study, computer scientists Larry Latour and Liesbeth Dusink suggested that functional fixedness can be combated by design decisions from functionally fixed designs that preserve the essence of the design. As an alternative to relying on the fixed solution for a particular design problem, this enables the students who have developed functionally fixed designs to comprehend how to approach resolving general problems of this nature.

Latour performed an experiment researching this by having software engineers analyze a fairly standard bit of code — the quicksort algorithm — and use it to create a partitioning function. Part of the quicksort algorithm involves partitioning a list into subsets so that it can be sorted; the experimenters wanted to use the code from within the algorithm to just do the partitioning.

To accomplish this, they abstracted each block of code in the function, determining its purpose and determining if it is required for the partitioning process. They were able to borrow the code from the quicksort method to develop a workable partition algorithm without having to reinvent the wheel.

Overcoming Prototypes

A thorough investigation of various traditional functional fixedness tests revealed an overarching theme of overcoming prototypes. Those who completed the tasks successfully demonstrated the ability to see beyond the prototype, or the initial intention for the object in use.

Those who were unable to produce a successful finished product were unable to progress beyond the item’s initial use. This appeared to be the case in investigations of functional fixedness categorization as well.

Reorganization into categories of seemingly unrelated items was easier for those that could look beyond intended function. Therefore, there is a need to overcome the prototype in order to avoid functional fixedness.

Peter Carnevale,, in his 1998 paper, suggests analyzing the object and mentally breaking it down into its components. After that is completed, it is essential to explore the possible functions of those parts.

As a result, an individual may become acquainted with new methods to use the objects provided to them at the givens. Individuals are thus thinking imaginatively and overcoming the prototypes that limit their capacity to accomplish the functional fixedness problem successfully.

References:

• Adamson, R.E. (1952). Functional Fixedness as related to problem solving: A repetition of three experiments. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 44, 288-291
• Birch, H.G., & Rabinowitz, H.S. (1951). The negative effect of previous experience on productive thinking . Journal of Experimental Psychology, 41, 121-125
• Calandra, Alexander (1959) Angels on a Pin. American College Public Relations Association.
• Carnevale, Peter J. (1998). Social Values and Social Conflict Creative Problem Solving and Categorization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(5), 1300
• Duncker, K. (1945). On problem solving. Psychological Monographs, 58:5
• Dusink, Liesbeth; Latour, Larry. (1996) Controlling functional fixedness: the essence of successful reuse . Know.-Based Syst. 9, 2, 137–143
• German, T.P., & Defeyter, M.A. (2000). Immunity to functional fixedness in young children. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 7(4), 707-712
• Kroneisen, M., Kriechbaumer, M., Kamp, SM. et al. (2021) How can I use it? The role of functional fixedness in the survival-processing paradigm. Psychon Bull Rev 28, 324–332
• Mayer, R. E. (1992). Thinking, Problem Solving, Cognition. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company

Last Updated on March 4, 2024

What Is Functional Fixedness in Psychology?

Categories Cognition

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Functional fixedness is when people can only think of traditional ways of using objects. It is a type of cognitive bias that prevents people from thinking outside of the box and developing creative solutions. 

When you have a particular tool, you might look at it in terms of how it is traditionally used. 

A screwdriver, for example, is for loosening or tightening a screw. But you might also use a screwdriver as a chisel, pry bar, hole punch, or scraper. 

Functional fixedness might prevent you from thinking of other ways to use such tools and objects to achieve your goals and reach novel solutions. 

Table of Contents

How Functional Fixedness Works

Functional fixedness limits a person’s ability to come up with novel solutions for ways to use familiar objects. Instead of thinking about all of the ways that an object could be used, this bias leads people to focus on the ways that it is traditionally utilized. 

Because of this focus on typical uses, a person might miss other solutions. This can create obstacles to effective problem-solving. Instead of being able to look beyond the way things are usually done, people get stuck in old patterns and ways of thinking that hold them back and prevent innovation.

Examples of Functional Fixedness

Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. In psychology, some examples of functional fixedness include:

Candle Problem

In this classic example of functional fixedness, people are given a candle, matches, and thumbtacks. They are then tasked with attaching the candle to a wall to be lit without dripping wax onto the floor. 

The solution is to empty the box of matches and use the matches to melt the bottom of the candle and stick it to the bottom of the box. Then, tack the box to the wall with the thumbtacks and use it as a candle holder. However, because of functional fixedness, people often only see the box as a container for the matches.

Two String Problem

Another example of functional fixedness is known as the two string problem. People are given two strings hanging from the ceiling and are tasked with tying them together. The strings are far enough apart that a person cannot reach both at the same time. However, people are also given other objects, such as pliers and a hook.

People with greater functional fixedness might struggle to see that they can tie one string to the pliers and swing the string, allowing them to grab the other string and then catch the other string in their opposite hand when it swings back toward them.

What Causes Functional Fixedness?

There are a variety of cognitive factors that can contribute to functional fixedness.

Perceptual Set

Perceptual set refers to the tendency to perceive certain aspects of a stimulus while ignoring others. Our perceptions of objects are heavily influenced by our expectations that past experiences have shaped. Because of this, we often see objects in terms of their familiar uses.

Inflexible Thinking

People who lack cognitive flexibility may struggle with rigid thinking patterns. This can make it difficult to approach problems creatively.

Stimulus Modality

Researchers have found that how information is presented can impact functional fixedness. When people encounter a picture of an object, they are more likely to try to reproduce those images when engaging in creative tasks, even if they don’t lead to the best results.

On the other hand, people who just see the names of the objects are more likely to come up with more creative solutions that are less influenced by functional fixedness.

What Are the Effects of Functional Fixedness?

Functional fixedness can have a negative impact on problem-solving and decision-making. Some potential challenges it might create include:

Poor Problem-Solving

Because functional fixedness limits your options, you’re less likely to come up with alternative solutions to problems. For example, if you are trying to pry something open but don’t have a pry bar, you might not recognize that a hammer could also be used for such a purpose because you are thinking of it only in terms of its traditional use.

Lack of Innovation and Creativity

When your thinking is fixed in a certain pattern, it’s much harder to think creatively. This can hinder your progress and lead to a lack of innovation.

Poor Use of Resources

Only using things based on their expected or traditional use can lead to inefficiency and waste. Because you’re overlooking alternative uses, you might spend more on materials or objects that you don’t actually need.

Missed Opportunities

Because functional fixedness limits improvement, people may miss out on opportunities to optimize their situation. Instead of succeeding in a task and moving forward, they stay stuck on the same problem for too long.

It’s important to recognize that functional fixedness isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes, it helps people solve problems more efficiently in ways that often work as expected. Recognizing when this cognitive bias might be holding you back (and taking steps to minimize it) can help ensure that it doesn’t hinder your creativity or problem-solving abilities.

How Can You Avoid Functional Fixedness?

Some research suggests that inaccurate knowledge about how tools work can contribute to functional fixedness. The same study suggested that while functional fixedness can make problem-solving more difficult, developing better problem-solving skills can help people get around it.

In order to avoid functional fixedness, it is important to become more aware of it and take steps to consciously think more outside the box.

Brainstorm Alternatives

Break the problem down into its most basic elements and then brainstorm possible solutions. Let your imagination run, and think up as many creative ideas as you can. Once you’ve come up with some ideas, look at them with a critical eye to consider which ones might be the most viable.

Seek Differing Viewpoints

Talk to people with different backgrounds and experiences to learn more about how they might approach the problem. Consider collaborating with groups of people who can bring differing types of expertise to the table. This can help promote new ideas and fresh insights you might not have considered otherwise.

Practice Mindfulness

Becoming more aware of your own preconceptions and assumptions can also be helpful. Work on becoming more mindful and aware of your own thinking patterns and how your emotional states might influence your choices and decision-making.

Foster Curiosity

Try to keep an open mind about new ideas. Ask questions and think about how some of these new ideas might contribute to your own problem-solving and decision-making strategies. This can help build greater cognitive flexibility, which will ultimately help reduce functional fixedness.

Look at Mistakes as Learning Opportunities

Remember that mistakes can be informative. Don’t hold back from trying new things. Instead, give yourself the freedom to experiment with creative solutions, and remember that you can always try again if things don’t go as expected.

Key Points to Remember

• Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias where a person’s previous knowledge of how an object typically functions limits how they might use it in different situations.
• It can negatively affect problem-solving by restricting how people use tools or objects in novel situations.
• Past experiences, cognitive inflexibility, and stimulus modality can all contribute to functional fixedness.
• To overcome functional fixedness and improve problem-solving, people can brainstorm alternative solutions, seek diverse perspectives, build self-awareness, foster creativity, and learn from mistakes.

Chrysikou, E. G., Motyka, K., Nigro, C., Yang, S. I., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2016). Functional Fixedness in Creative Thinking Tasks Depends on Stimulus Modality. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts , 10 (4), 425–435. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000050

Ibáñez de Aldecoa, P., de Wit, S., & Tebbich, S. (2021). Can habits impede creativity by inducing fixation? Frontiers in Psychology , 12 , 683024. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.683024

Kroneisen, M., Kriechbaumer, M., Kamp, S. M., & Erdfelder, E. (2021). How can I use it? The role of functional fixedness in the survival-processing paradigm. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review , 28 (1), 324–332. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01802-y

Munoz-Rubke, F., Olson, D., Will, R., & James, K. H. (2018). Functional fixedness in tool use: Learning modality, limitations and individual differences. Acta Psychologica , 190 , 11–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.06.006

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What is functional fixedness in behavioral science, what is functional fixedness.

Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person’s ability to use an object only in the way it is traditionally used. The term was coined by German-American psychologist Karl Duncker and is a type of mental set and fixation, where one is ‘fixed’ on seeing objects as functioning only in their usual or prescribed manner. It represents a barrier to problem-solving and creative thinking as it hampers the ability to view problems from a new, innovative perspective.

This bias affects a person’s problem-solving and decision-making abilities, as they fail to consider alternative uses for an object or a solution to a problem beyond its ‘fixed’ or standard function. The concept of functional fixedness is central to the study of creativity, innovation, cognitive psychology, and design thinking.

Examples of Functional Fixedness

Duncker’s candle problem.

The candle problem is a classic experiment used to measure functional fixedness. In this task, individuals are given a box of thumbtacks, a candle, and a book of matches, and asked to affix the lit candle to the wall so that it will not drip wax onto the table below. The solution involves using the thumbtack box as a candle holder, but due to functional fixedness, many people struggle to see the box as anything other than a container for the thumbtacks.

Two-Cord Problem

This is another classic experiment where a person is shown two cords hanging from the ceiling and is asked to tie them together. However, the cords are spaced far enough apart that the person cannot hold onto one and reach the other. The solution involves swinging one of the cords like a pendulum, then grabbing the other cord, and finally grabbing the swinging cord when it returns. But often, people overlook the possibility of using an object in the room (like a weight) to swing the cord due to functional fixedness.

Everyday Examples

Functional fixedness can be seen in everyday situations. For instance, when a screwdriver is not available, it might not occur to a person to use a coin or a knife to turn a screw, as they are fixated on the ‘normal’ function of these objects.

Significance of Functional Fixedness

Functional fixedness is an essential concept in fields like psychology, design, and innovation. Understanding this bias can help in fostering creative thinking and problem-solving. In psychology, it is used to understand cognitive barriers and how they can be overcome. In design and innovation, an understanding of functional fixedness can lead to more innovative solutions by challenging the conventional uses of objects or ideas. In education, overcoming functional fixedness can encourage students to think ‘outside the box’.

Controversies and Criticisms of Functional Fixedness

Some critics argue that functional fixedness is not so much a cognitive bias as it is a result of cultural or societal norms that dictate the use of objects or solutions. Additionally, while the term is widely accepted and used, the methodologies and applications in measuring and overcoming functional fixedness have been criticized and debated. Some researchers also question the universal applicability of functional fixedness, as certain cultures may promote more flexible thinking and less adherence to traditional object usage than others. Despite these debates, the term remains a significant contribution to our understanding of cognitive biases, creativity, and problem-solving.

Related Behavioral Science Terms

Belief perseverance, crystallized intelligence, extraneous variable, representative sample, factor analysis, egocentrism, stimulus generalization, reciprocal determinism, divergent thinking, convergent thinking, social environment, decision making, related articles.

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Psychology Of Fixation

Functional fixedness is a psychological and cognitive bias that may limit a person to seeing any object or issue only in the way it has traditionally been used or seen.

For example, you might think of a pair of scissors and paper. Scissors are often fixed in their function as paper cutters, which is their traditional use. Paper might be seen as a drawing, creating, or writing tool. Similarly, a car can be thought of as functionally fixed in its purpose as a means of transport.

A brief background of functional fixedness

Functional fixedness, or functional fixity, as it was previously known, was coined around 1935 by German-born Gestalt therapist Karl Duncker . Duncker's contribution to cognitive psychology was his extensive work in understanding cognition and problem-solving. Functional fixedness originated in Duncker's seminal study of how adults solved various mathematical and practical problems. 

The study was published in his book Psychologie des produktiven Denkens in 1935. Duncker argued that while functional fixedness is a necessary perceptive and cognitive skill, it can hamper problem-solving and creativity. Later, in 1945, he became famous for the Candle Problem, devised to test a person's functional fixedness and ability to "think outside the box."

Duncker's "Candle Problem" and "thinking outside the box"

The Candle Problem experiment serves as an example of functional fixedness in action. The experiment’s materials included a candle, a box with thumbtacks, and matches, which were placed on a table close to a wall. Subjects were instructed to attach the candle to the wall so that wax would not drip onto the table when the candle was lit and to complete this task as fast as possible.

Many subjects tried unsuccessful creative methods, such as trying to pin the candle to the wall with a tack. Others melted the end of the candle and tried to stick it to the wall. Only some figured out the solution to this problem: empty the thumbtacks from the box, attach the empty box to the wall with a thumbtack, and make the candle stand upright in the box before lighting it.

From this experiment, Duncker derived that people have difficulty solving a problem when one object has a fixed function that must be changed for a solution to be found. In this instance, the successful subjects were able to overcome functional fixedness and realize that the box was not only a container for the tacks but also a candle holder.

When Duncker repeated the experiment, placing the tacks outside the box, nearly all participants were able to solve the problem faster. Changing one detail enhanced their ability to overcome functional fixedness and solve the problem far more efficiently.

Functional fixedness in problem-solving and creativity

It can be illuminating to look at how Duncker viewed problem-solving. According to his process, there are seven stages of overcoming the type of cognitive bias that leads to functional fixedness.  

If a goal cannot be reached immediately through one's obvious or usual actions, it may be a problem. In Duncker's words, "A problem arises when a living creature has a goal but does not know how this goal is to be reached. There must be recourse to thinking whenever one cannot go from the given situation to the desired situation simply by action."  

Problem-solving comprises phases, with each phase being a reformulation of the problem. Duncker describes this step by stating, "The solution of a new problem typically takes place in successive phases which (except the first phase) have, in retrospect, the character of a solution and (except the last phase), in prospect, that of a problem."

In summation, looking at multiple angles may help you overcome your mental block, understand a problem on a deeper level, and formulate a strategy for tackling it. Creative solutions may arise in this stage.

Stage three 

The point or function of a solution is also considered its definition as a solution. Duncker wrote, "The functional value of a solution is indispensable for the understanding of its being a solution. It is exactly what is called the sense, the principle, or the point of the solution."

Stage four 

Defining the principle of the solution is, in general, the first step in the process of solving it. According to Duncker, "the final form of an individual solution is, in general, not reached by a single step from the original setting of the problem; on the contrary, the principle, the functional value of the solution, typically arises first, and the final form of the solution in question develops only as this principle becomes more and more concrete successively."

Stage five 

While progressing through phases to solve a problem, the human mind may return to earlier phases. Duncker stated, "It will be realized that, in the transition to phases in another line, the thought process may range widely. Every such transition involves a return to an earlier phase of the problem; an earlier task is set anew; a new branching off from an old point in the family tree occurs. Sometimes a [subject] returns to the original setting of the problem, sometimes just to the immediately preceding phase."

General heuristic methods may control each phase of problem-solving. Heuristics are processes or methods that allow a person to discover answers for themselves. Duncker claimed, "We can, therefore, say that 'insistent' analyses of the situation, especially the endeavor to vary appropriate elements meaningfully subspecies of the goal, must belong to the essential nature of a solution through thinking. We may call such relatively general procedures, 'heuristic methods of thinking.'"

Stage seven 

The solution may depend on details specific to the problem. Using an object only for its stated function, or seeing problems only as they present themselves, can become a barrier to both problem-solving and creativity.

Problem-solving

Duncker distinguished between mechanical and organic problem-solving abilities. In his book, Psychologie des produktiven Denkens, he explained that mechanical thinking is not conducive to problem-solving. He wrote, "he who merely searches his memory for a 'solution of such-and-such problem' may remain just as blind to the inner nature of the problem-situation before him as a person who, instead of thinking himself, refers the problem to an intelligent acquaintance or an encyclopedia. Truly, these methods are not to be despised; for they have a certain heuristic value, and one can arrive at solutions in that fashion. But such problem-solving has little to do with thinking."

On the other hand, organic or productive thinking (or problem-solving) requires a reorganization of a problem and a structural understanding of the problem situation. To avoid functional fixedness bias, a person may be required to look at an object or a problem in a way that assigns new functions and breaks away from functions that may appear inherent. 

One excellent example of this bias can be seen by simply looking at a thin cloth. If you see cloth only for its usual cleaning function, you might not consider other uses. On the other hand, if you are cold at a campsite and can't find your kindling, you might consider using a cleaning cloth doused in gas to start your fire. You solved the problem by considering other possibilities than what you are used to. Many engineers use this process in their work. The concept of “function fixedness” may also only apply to objects being viewed by individuals of certain ages. One clinical trial showed that children below the age of six seemed “immune” to the effect of functional fixedness bias, even after the box’s containment ability was demonstrated. In this social psychology experiment, the immunity during early development was attributed to the children’s forming notions of function, as well as their past experience related to problem-solving. 

To explain how changing fixed-function thinking can lead to creative problem-solving, we may consider Elon Musk sending a Tesla car to space. 

All people may assign a fixed function to a Tesla car. It often serves as a means of transport from point A to B. Musk, an inventor and entrepreneur, invested his time and money to discover more economical and powerful ways to travel in space. To test the first rocket, Tesla's company developed the Falcon Heavy. The Falcon Heavy needed a payload.

Instead of choosing a conventional payload, such as a dummy cargo or passengers, he chose a car he designed and drove himself, a red Tesla Roadster. Musk changed the function of the car (transport), so it served as a payload (solved a problem) and became a symbol bigger than its function (creativity). It may have also boosted sales for his brand. 

Creative people may be non-conforming and independent; in some cases, they can think in a manner that flies in the face of many cognitive biases. Fixedness is not often a characteristic of creativity, so those who practice it may not showcase as much functional fixedness. Testing someone's sensitivity to functional fixedness bias is often done in psychological settings to measure creativity and cognitive flexibility.

Creativity and money

In the 1960s, Canadian Professor of Psychology, Sam Glucksberg, repeated Duncker's Candle Problem experiment. This time, however, he incentivized it with money. His findings were that monetizing the outcome hampered a person’s ability to creatively solve the problem, and he thus concluded that money does not help avoid functional fixedness but actually stifles creativity. 

This notion was tested again in 2013 by Ramm and Torsvik , both in individuals and groups, but the researchers could not replicate Glucksberg's findings. Instead, they found that "…providing monetary rewards leaves performance unaltered. This is also somewhat surprising, at least for those who think monetary incentives always induce individuals to work harder and smarter."

Whether money hampers or does not affect creativity, both studies indicate that it does not improve or motivate creativity, which can be motivated by other factors. Money simply cannot provide a mental shortcut to increased creativity.

Addressing functional fixedness in therapy

Functional fixedness and other cognitive biases are not psychological conditions that require therapeutic intervention. Overcoming functional fixedness and cognitive bias isn’t typically a goal you might set for your treatment. However, therapists may have creative solutions to common mental health symptoms and daily stressors. If you're unsure where to turn in your life or how to solve problems effectively, consider enlisting assistance from a board-certified therapist. 

Although therapy has been traditionally carried out in an office environment, the functional fixedness of counseling is now changing. More individuals are trying online counseling as a creative form of therapy. A Berkeley study demonstrated that online therapy is a viable alternative to face-to-face counseling and is often as effective as traditional methods. In this study, participants reported a significant reduction in symptoms of depression. People who feel stuck in a depressive state may find value in working with a therapist, who may be able to help them come up with a creative solution to their mental health challenges.

In addition to its effectiveness, online therapy provides benefits that in-person therapy may not. Online therapy is often more affordable than in-person therapy, and online therapy grants a level of convenience, as you can meet from a location that suits you. This may help you overcome any reservations you hold about attending therapy.

Thanks to researchers like Duncker, we may better understand why some individuals struggle to envision innovative solutions to enduring problems. At times, a new perspective can help enlighten us to a helpful idea. If you're hoping to gain a new perspective from a professional, consider reaching out to a mental health provider for support.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is an example of overcoming functional fixedness? When can functional fixedness occur? What is functional and mental set fixedness? What is a real life example of functionalism in psychology? What is an example of structural fixedness? How does functional fixedness affect our thinking? What is functional fixedness in men? What is the difference between functional fixedness and fixation? Where did functional fixedness come from? What is an example of a functional disorder? How does functionalism explain human behavior? What is the opposite of functional fixedness? How do you test functional fixedness? Is functional fixedness a barrier to problem solving? What is fixation in thinking?

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Functional Fixedness

Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that refers to our tendency to see things only in terms of their usual or intended function.

Functional fixedness can lead us to miss out on potential opportunities and solutions because we are too focused on the expected use-case of an object.

For example,  imagine you are trying to solve a puzzle but you can't seem to find the right piece. You might give up because you're only looking for the piece that fits the hole, when in fact there may be other pieces that could also work (e.g. by using them in a different way or combining them with other pieces).

This bias can impact our creativity because it limits our thinking to the usual or intended use of an object. We may miss out on potential solutions because we are not considering all the possibilities.

How to avoid functional fixedness

There are a few ways that you can avoid falling prey to functional fixedness:

1. Be aware of the bias: The first step is to be aware of the bias and its impact on your thinking. This will help you to catch yourself when you are falling into the trap of functional fixedness.

2. Challenge your assumptions: When you are trying to solve a problem, take a step back and challenge your assumptions about the usual or intended use of an object. Ask yourself if there are other ways that the object could be used.

3. Be open to new ideas: When you are brainstorming solutions, be open to all ideas, no matter how outrageous they may seem at first. Sometimes the best solutions come from thinking outside the box.

In summary, functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that can impact our creativity and problem-solving ability. By being aware of the bias and making a conscious effort to challenge our assumptions, we can avoid falling prey to it.

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Functional fixedness stops you from having innovative ideas.

July 30, 2017 2017-07-30

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Why is it that we always look for a hammer whenever we need to drive a nail into a wall? In many cases, any heavy object would do the job, and yet we succumb to the need to use the most traditional tool to complete the task. This mental shortcut allows people to speedily solve recurring problems. However, it also prevents them from seeing alternate solutions to problems.

Definition: Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that drives people to use objects in traditional, standard ways.

Using physical objects only as they were originally intended is usually not a problem in everyday life: after all, if you already own a hammer, it would be rather wasteful to convene an ideation session to invent ways to drive the nail into the wall every time you want to hang a painting. However, when your job is to produce innovative design solutions, being stuck “inside the box” can be a tough hurdle.

In This Article:

Ruts deepen over time, breaking out of the box.

Not to be mean, but 5-year-olds are better at creative thinking than you . In the classic functional-fixedness experiment, participants are given a candle, a matchbook, and a box of tacks and are asked to affix the candle to a vertical surface so that it would be able to burn. Researchers found that adults and older children (6- and 7-year-olds) are significantly slower to use the tack box as a shelf for the candle compared to 5-year-olds. If the box was provided on its own, not as a container for the tacks, the time to reach the solution drastically decreased for the older children — indicating that the fixation on the containment function of the box was to blame. The 5-year-olds, however, were just as quick to solve the task when the box’s conventional function was demonstrated as when it was not — there was no advantage to presenting the box on its own.

Overlooking alternate approaches and functions hinders our problem-solving capabilities . In the candle experiment, 5-year-olds were better at seeing alternative uses for objects, which affected how they viewed the overall problem and thus how they approached solving it. As we get older and gain more experience using objects, we lose this functional fluidity, and instead become fixated on their “proper” use.

Functional fixedness is a bias that strengthens over time. The more we’ve practiced a solution, the harder it is to see alternative ones. Sound familiar? I’m sure we all can remember a situation when we felt that the traditional solution was no longer effective, yet we were compelled to accept it because it’s “the way it’s always been done.”

Getting an outside, fresh perspective can often expose alternate ways to approach a task. This is a key reason we recommend ideating in a group and involving individuals from multiple disciplines: hearing others’ perspectives and ideas can jostle you away from fixating on any single solution .

Other than getting a second opinion, how can we break out of these ruts and channel a 5-year-old’s way of thinking? As with many ailments, the first step to overcoming functional fixedness is acknowledging the problem. We must actively push ourselves to not judge ideas too early, and to consider a variety of alternate functions and perspectives. Ask: How else could this work? What are other approaches to solving this problem?

To see alternative, innovative solutions more easily, reframe the design problem. Abstracting the problem by removing the surface details minimizes the opportunities for functional fixedness and allows you to focus on the core issue. Once the problem is abstracted, it is easier to recognize related fields of expertise from which to draw inspiration. Research has found that when people look for inspiration from distant domains, they generate more creative solutions than when they consider only domains closely related to the original, non-abstracted representation of the problem.

For example, in a study run at Carnegie Mellon University, participants were asked to design a power strip in which large plugs wouldn’t block adjacent outlets. Researchers also created an abstracted version of this problem: How to fit objects of different sizes into a container so that they don’t block each other and take full advantage of the container’s capacity? In this reframed problem, the surface features of power strips, plugs, and outlets were stripped away to avoid functional fixedness. When given the abstracted problem, participants in the study were able to identify remotely related, yet potentially relevant domains of expertise such as contortionism, landscaping, carpentry, and Japanese aesthetics. People who collected inspiration from these distant-yet-structurally-relevant domains produced the most novel, practical solutions to the original design problem, proving that creativity increases when functional fixedness is prevented .

Similarly, whenever you are faced with a design problem, resist the urge to immediately jump into brainstorming solutions. Instead, abstract the problem and identify potentially related sources of inspiration. (Tip: After you’ve abstracted the problem, take a break so you can allow yourself to “forget” the original formulation.) Then, consider how the problem is solved in these outside fields, and how those solutions could be translated back into your design.

Cognitive biases such as functional fixedness keep designers from seeing the full range of solutions to a problem and affect the ideas that are generated and considered. The inability to recognize alternative approaches and uses of elements constrains creativity, and thus limits ideation and problem solving.

Here’s a three-step method to avoid functional fixedness:

• Abstract the problem : distill the problem down to the basics, eliminating any surface details.
• Identify alternative fields of expertise that could help solve the problem.
• Draw inspiration from these distant domains in order to apply outside-the-box concepts to solve the original design problem. At this stage, no concept is too crazy: employ the ideation technique of delaying judgment and branch out as far as possible to generate creative potential solutions.

We can also strive to think innovatively and use our imaginations more in our everyday lives. Practice overcoming functional fixedness whenever possible: Use a thin coin to tighten a screw instead of reaching for a screwdriver; open a package with your car key instead of a box cutter; or think like The Little Mermaid and make a hair comb out of a fork! The more often you push yourself to think divergently and see novel uses for old objects, the easier it will become.

Practice thinking outside-the-box and learn more tips to cultivate creative ideas in our Effective Ideation Techniques full-day training course.

References:

German, T. P., and Defeyter, M. (2000). Immunity to Functional Fixedness in Young Children. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 7(4), 707-712.

Yu, L., Kittur, A., and Kraut, R. (2016). Encouraging “Outside-the-box” Thinking in Crowd Innovation Through Identifying Domains of Expertise. Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing , 1214-1222

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Change Blindness in UX: Definition

Functional Fixedness

Functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual is unable to see the potential uses of an object beyond its typical function. This can hinder problem-solving and creativity, as the individual may struggle to think of novel ways to use the object.

In the context of innovation and technology, functional fixedness can be a significant obstacle. It is important for businesses and individuals to be open to new and unconventional uses for existing products and technologies. By embracing a diverse range of perspectives and approaches, organizations can foster a culture of creativity and continuous improvement.

One way to overcome functional fixedness is through the use of lateral thinking, which involves approaching problems from unconventional angles and seeking out novel solutions. This can involve breaking down mental barriers and preconceptions about the ways in which things are typically used.

Another approach is to expose oneself to diverse experiences and ideas. This can help to expand one's frame of reference and enable them to think more creatively and flexibly. By actively seeking out new perspectives and exposing oneself to unfamiliar situations, individuals can better overcome functional fixedness and improve their problem-solving skills.

Functional Fixedness: What It Is and How to Overcome It - Healthline

https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/functional-fixedness

Functional Fixedness as a Cognitive Bias - Verywell Mind

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-functional-fixedness-2795484

Functional Fixedness Psychology | What is Functional Fixedness? - Video ...

https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-is-functional-fixedness-psychology.html

Functional fixedness - Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_fixedness

Functional Fixedness in Psychology: Definition & Examples

https://study.com/academy/lesson/functional-fixedness-in-psychology-definition-examples-quiz.html

Fixedness: A Barrier to Creative Output

Only a cognitive tool can help us see past our fixedness..

Posted June 26, 2013

"We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us." Marshall McLuhan

The most challenging aspect about innovating is rooted in a concept called fixedness. Fixedness is the inability to realize that something known to have a particular use may also be used to perform other functions. When one is faced with a new problem, fixedness blocks one’s ability to use old tools in novel ways.

Psychologist Karl Duncker coined the term functional fixedness for describing the difficulties in visual perception and problem solving that arise when one element of a whole situation has a (fixed) function which has to be changed for making the correct perception or for finding solutions. In his famous “candle problem” the situation was defined by the objects: a box of candles, a box of thumb-tacks and a book of matches. The task was to fix the candles on the wall without any additional elements. The difficulty of this problem arises from the functional fixedness of the candle box. It is a container in the problem situation but must be used as a shelf in the solution situation.

Roni Horiwitz of S.I.T. puts it this way: “It’s almost impossible for the human brain to produce a really fresh and unique thought. Every thought, opinion or idea is somehow connected to previous concepts stored in the brain.” Because of this, we are often unable to see the solution to a problem although it stares us in the face. We are too connected to what we knew previously. We not only can’t let it go, but we try very hard to anchor around it to explain what is going on.

Fixedness is insidious. It affects how we think about and see virtually every part of our lives. At work, we have fixedness about our products and services, out customers and competitors, and our future opportunities. The most damaging form of fixedness is when we are stuck on our current business model. We cannot see past what is working today. We stop challenging our assumptions. We continue to believe what was once true is still true. In the end, it is this perpetual blind spot that is most dangerous to our innovation potential.

Customers have fixedness, too. Customers have a limited view of the future, they have well-entrenched notions of how the world works, and they suffer from the same blind spot we do. Yet we continue to seek the “Voice of the Customer” as though a divine intervention will break through this fixedness so they can offer new ideas.

Fortunately, there is a way to address it. The way to break fixedness is to use structured innovation tools and principles that make you see problems and opportunities in new ways. Remember the classic Will Rogers quote:

"It's not what you don't know that will get you. It's what you know that ain't so."

Or was it Mark Twain?

Read more about structured creativity from the just released book, Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results (Simon & Schuster).

Copyright 2013 Drew Boyd

Drew Boyd is a professor of marketing and innovation at the University of Cincinnati.

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How can I use it? The role of functional fixedness in the survival-processing paradigm

Meike kroneisen.

1 School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, D-68131 Mannheim, Germany

2 University of Koblenz-Landau, Landau, Germany

Michael Kriechbaumer

Siri-maria kamp.

3 Department of Psychology, University of Trier, Trier, Germany

Edgar Erdfelder

After imagining being stranded in the grasslands of a foreign land without any basic survival material and rating objects with respect to their relevance in this situation, participants show superior memory performance for these objects compared to a control scenario. A possible mechanism responsible for this memory advantage is the richness and distinctiveness with which information is encoded in the survival-scenario condition. When confronted with the unusual task of thinking about how an object can be used in a life-threatening context, participants will most likely consider both common and uncommon (i.e., novel) functions of this object. These ideas about potential functions may later serve as powerful retrieval cues that boost memory performance. We argue that objects differ in their potential to be used as novel, creative survival tools. Some objects may be low in functional fixedness, meaning that it is possible to use them in many different ways. Other objects, in contrast, may be high in functional fixedness, meaning that the possibilities to use them in non-standard ways is limited. We tested experimentally whether functional fixedness of objects moderates the strength of the survival-processing advantage compared to a moving control scenario. As predicted, we observed an interaction of the functional fixedness level with scenario type: The survival-processing memory advantage was more pronounced for objects low in functional fixedness compared to those high in functional fixedness. These results are in line with the richness-of-encoding explanation of the survival-processing advantage.

Introduction

An evolutionary perspective on human memory focuses on the conditions under which our cognitive systems process information especially well (Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, 2007 ). Consistent with ideas based on evolutionary psychology, experiments showed better memory for material that is relevant for certain adaptive ends such as social exchange (e.g., Buchner, Bell, Mehl, & Musch, 2009 ; Kroneisen, Woehe, & Rausch, 2015 ), mating (Allan, Jones, DeBruine, & Smith, 2012 ), or learning an association between potentially dangerous stimuli (e.g., snakes, spiders) and aversive stimuli, such as shock (see Öhman & Mineka, 2001 ).

In the survival-processing paradigm, participants are instructed to imagine being stranded in the grasslands of a foreign land, without any food or water, and in danger of predators. A list of items is then presented that participants are required to rate with respect to their relevance in this survival scenario. In a later surprise retention test, words encoded in this scenario are recalled better than words encoded in control scenarios such as imagining moving to a foreign country (Nairne et al., 2007 ) or other deep-processing tasks such as rating the pleasantness of words (e.g., Nairne, Pandeirada, & Thompson, 2008 ; Nairne et al., 2007 ).

This so-called survival-processing effect has been shown for various retention measures and different populations; it is still found when survival processing is compared to other memory-enhancing encoding tasks or alternative emotionally arousing scenarios (Kang, McDermott, & Cohen, 2008 ; Kroneisen & Makerud, 2017 ; Nairne et al., 2008 ; Otgaar & Smeets, 2010 ; Röer, Bell, & Buchner, 2013 ; Weinstein, Bugg, & Roediger, 2008 ). Furthermore, it was successfully replicated as part of the Open Science Collaboration project (Open Science Collaboration, 2015). In sum, survival processing seems to be one of the most efficient mnemonic procedures known so far (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008a ; but see Klein, 2012 ).

According to Nairne and colleagues, the survival-processing advantage provides evidence that human memory has been selectively tuned during evolution to process and retain information that is relevant to fitness (selective-tuning hypothesis; Nairne, Vasconcelos, & Pandeirada, 2011 ). This of course does not necessarily imply that a single cognitive “survival module” underlies fitness processing in general. Rather, a number of different domain-specific processes, like, for example, a predator-retention mechanism, might be involved (Nairne & Panderada, 2008b ). Still, the question remains which proximate cognitive mechanisms mediate the survival-processing effect. Several explanations proposed in the literature rely on efficient forms of encoding, storage, or retrieval that are domain-general in nature and thus are associated with good memory performance in general, not just in survival contexts (see Erdfelder & Kroneisen, 2014 , for a review).

One of these hypotheses, already considered by Nairne et al. ( 2007 ), posits that active elaboration and richness of encoding triggered by the rating task underlies the survival-processing advantage (Kroneisen & Erdfelder, 2011 ; Kroneisen, Rummel, & Erdfelder, 2014 , 2016 ). More specifically, the richness-of-encoding hypothesis maintains that relevance ratings implicitly encourage participants to think about different uses of items in a complex survival context. These additional thoughts about potential functions generated during encoding, especially the uncommon and creative ideas, may later serve as powerful retrieval cues in a surprise memory test, thus boosting memory performance to the degree that the test is sensitive to these cues. Direct memory tests such as free recall will benefit from these processes.

Thinking about using a set of randomly compiled objects to maximize chances of survival can be considered a difficult problem-solving task (Bell, Röer, & Buchner, 2015 ; Kroneisen, Erdfelder, & Buchner, 2013 ; Röer, Bell, & Buchner, 2013 ). In line with this, Klein, Robertson, and Delton ( 2010 , 2011 ) showed that planning (which also involves thoughts about object uses) may play a major role in the survival-processing advantage. Bell et al. ( 2015 ) even showed that instructions to think about how to use a specific item increases the memory benefit compared to the standard relevance-rating instructions. Bell and colleagues also came up with an explanation for the latter effect: When confronted with the unusual task of thinking about how an item can be used in a survival situation, participants try harder to think not only about the common functions of objects but also about novel functions. However, to produce ideas about novel functions of objects, they have to retrieve different object characteristics (e.g., form, material, stability) from long-term memory and then mentally simulate the use of the specific item for this new situation. For example, when thinking about the usefulness of bed sheets in a survival situation you can think about their normal function (e.g., cover your bed, even if the bed is just a place on the ground), as well as about novel functions (e.g., transporting things, use as towel, use as tent). In contrast, thinking about using sheets in more common contexts like moving to another city is more restricted to the usual function of the object (covering your bed). Of course, it is still possible to use a bed sheet in a more unusual way like wrap up fragile objects. However, there is often no need to use items outside their normal function in a moving scenario. In line with this, Bell et al. ( 2015 ) reanalyzed data from Röer et al. ( 2013 ) and found that ideas produced under survival instructions received higher creativity ratings from raters than the ideas generated in the moving condition. Furthermore, Wilson ( 2016 ) showed that the survival scenario elicited more alternative uses in the Guilford’s Alternate Uses Test compared to non-survival-related conditions.

However, the possibility of using objects in ways that differ from their common function vary considerably between objects. Some items can be used in many novel ways while others are more or less restricted to their typical everyday function. We refer to such differences between objects as differences in functional fixedness . The term “functional fixedness” was already used by Duncker ( 1945 ), and is an important phenomenon in problem-solving research. In essence, it means that people focus on a specific (common) function of an object while overlooking other possible functions that might help to solve a problem (Arnon & Kreitler, 1984 ). For example, in the candle problem (Duncker, 1945 ), participants are instructed to fix and light a candle on a wall. However, they only have a matchbox and a box of thumbtacks besides the candle to accomplish this task. To solve this problem, participants have to empty the box of thumbtacks, use the thumbtacks to nail the box to the wall, put the candle into the box, and light the candle with the match. Functional fixedness means that participants struggle to see the box as a device to hold the candle.

In line with these ideas, a string, for example, can be seen as an object with many possibilities of using it in novel ways. The functional fixedness of the object is thus low. In contrast, a traffic light, for example, is more restricted to its common function. Consequently, its functional fixedness is high. This functional fixedness is independent from the context in which these objects occur. In the following experiment, we aimed to test whether functional fixedness of objects affects the strength of the survival-processing advantage as predicted – that is, low functional fixedness is associated with stronger memory benefits than high functional fixedness of objects.

Pre-studies

As explained above, the richness-of-encoding hypothesis maintains that the survival-processing advantage is due to the stronger stimulation of ideas about the possible uses of objects in survival compared to control contexts. These unique ideas may later act as highly distinctive retrieval cues in the retention task (Kroneisen & Erdfelder, 2011 ).

Bell et al. ( 2015 ) suggested that the survival condition triggers participants to think about not only common but also novel functions of objects. However, items differ in their potential to use them in novel ways. The more novel functions someone can think of, the more unique retrieval cues should be available to guide the person in the later memory test.

Pre-study 1

Based on this reasoning, we wanted to create a list of words that differ in their level of functional fixedness.

Participants

Thirteen participants from the University of Koblenz-Landau were asked to rate 32 words for concreteness, meaningfulness, and vividness.

Design and procedure

In order to find a list of words, one of the authors searched through the German dictionary to obtain a list of items that can be assigned to either (a) items very restricted to their common function such as a desktop (high functional fixedness) or (b) items that can be used in many different and novel ways such as a bed sheet (low functional fixedness). This resulted in a list of 141 concrete words. In the next step, 15 participants rated the degree of functional fixedness of these 141 concrete words on a scale ranging from -2 (item can only be used for one specific thing) to +2 (item can be used for a range of different things). A total of 16 concrete words highest in functional fixedness ( M highFF = -1.23, SD highFF = 0.76) and 16 concrete words lowest in functional fixedness ( M lowFF = 1.23, SD lowFF = 0.27) were chosen (see the Appendix for the full lists of words). Thus, overall 32 target words were chosen. In a final step, different participants were asked to rate these 32 words for concreteness, meaningfulness, and vividness on a scale ranging from 1 (abstract; low in meaningfulness; low in vividness) to 5 (concrete; high in meaningfulness; high in vividness).

Differences between words high and low in functional fixedness were negligible on all three dimensions (Table ​ (Table1 1 ).

Means and standard deviations of participants’ ratings for concreteness, meaningfulness, and vividness, shown separately for words high and low in functional fixedness

Pre-study 2

As mentioned above, we argue that objects high and low in functional fixedness differ in their potential to use them in novel ways. In order to test this for the words selected in Pre-study 1, we conducted another pre-study.

Thirty-seven psychology students (29 females) from the University of Mannheim and the University of Trier participated for course credits. None of these participants took part in Pre-study 1. Their age ranged from 19 to 40 years ( M = 23.16, SD = 5.86). Given N = 37, α = .05, and df = 36, a one-tailed matched-pairs t- test can detect a medium effect size d = 0.5 (Cohen, 1988 ) with a power of 1-β = .91 (Faul, Erdfelder, Lang, & Buchner, 2009 ).

Participants were tested online in sessions that lasted approximately 20 min. After providing informed consent, participants responded to several items assessing demographic information. Next, participants were told that they will see the names of 32 objects for 30 s each. We asked them to provide us with different ideas of how to use these objects. We explicitly told our participants that this task may be easy for some objects and harder for others and instructed them to think of as many ideas as possible for each object. Each word was shown for exactly 30 s, immediately followed by the next word. This task was preceded by a short practice trial, in which the participants had to provide ideas for how to use the object “blanket” for 30 s. Then, the 32 words from Pre-study 1 were shown to each participant in random order.

We counted the number of ideas each participant provided. For words low in functional fixedness more ideas were created ( M lowFF = 3.89, SD lowFF = 1.19) than for words high in functional fixedness ( M highFF = 2.97, SD highFF = 1.27; t (36) =  − 9.58, p  < .001, estimated d =  − 0.75). In line with the ratings provided in Pre-study 1, words low in functional fixedness enabled participants to generate more ideas about potential uses than words high in functional fixedness.

Main experiment

Using the word sets preselected and validated in Pre-studies 1 and 2, we tested our hypothesis that functional fixedness of objects affects the number of words recalled. Specifically, words describing objects low in functional fixedness should be recalled better. Furthermore, we predicted an interaction between functional fixedness and scenario: Words low in functional fixedness should benefit more from the survival-processing advantage than words high in functional fixedness.

One hundred and forty-one students (125 female) from the University of Koblenz-Landau participated. None of these participants took part in the pre-studies. They received a monetary compensation. Their age ranged from 18 to 31 years ( M = 21.59, SD = 2.37). For a medium effect size f = 0.25 (Cohen, 1988 ), α = .05, and df 1 = 1, df 2 = 139, the power to detect a significant interaction of a between-Ss and a within-Ss factor in our design (see below) exceeds .99 (Faul et al., 2009 ).

Apparatus and materials

We used the 32 words from the pre-studies as targets in the encoding phase, of which 16 were high and 16 were low in functional fixedness. To absorb primacy and recency effects, we added six buffer words, three at the beginning and three at the end of the list. Apart from the buffer words, all words were presented in random order. Except for language, the survival and moving scenario descriptions were identical to those used by Nairne et al. ( 2007 ). All materials were presented in German.

A 2 (scenario: survival vs. moving) × 2 (functional fixedness: high vs. low) mixed design was used. Participants were randomly assigned to either the survival ( N = 71) or the moving ( N = 70) scenario (between-subjects factor). Participants of both conditions rated 32 words according to their relevance. These words were either high (16 items) or low (16 items) in functional fixedness (within-subjects factor).

Recall performance, response latencies, and relevance ratings served as dependent variables.

Participants were tested in groups ranging in size from one to four in a lab in Landau. Each session lasted approximately 25 min. Stimuli were presented and controlled by personal computers, and participants entered their responses using the keyboard.

Depending on the experimental condition, participants were asked to rate words according to their relevance for either the survival or the moving scenario. Stimuli were presented one at a time for 5 s each, and participants were asked to rate the words on a 5-point scale, with 1 indicating “absolutely not relevant” and 5 “extremely relevant” to the current scenario. They had to respond within 5 s. If they did not respond within this time limit, a warning message occurred and the next word was presented. This would result in a trial without rating or response-time acquisition. The rating task was preceded by a short practice trial, in which two words had to be rated for relevance. After the rating task, participants performed a distractor task (i.e., filling in an unrelated questionnaire) for 12 min and were then unexpectedly prompted with a free-recall test for the words previously processed in the relevance-rating task. Similar to other experiments using the survival-processing paradigm (e.g., Kroneisen & Makerud, 2017 ), the final recall phase lasted for 8 min. It was not possible to terminate the recall phase earlier than 8 min. At the end of the experiment, participants were debriefed and thanked for their participation.

The significance level was set to α = .05 for all statistical tests. Relevance ratings were provided for 99.93% of the presented words. Overall, there were 32 missed trials. Eighteen subjects did not provide a response for all the words presented to them.

The mean proportions of correct free recall for both scenarios, separately for words high and low in functional fixedness, are shown in Fig. ​ Fig.1 1 ( M SurvivalFFhigh = .42, M SurvivalFFlow = .60, M MovingFFhigh = .34, M MovingFFlow = .46; range of words recalled: 5–25). A 2 (scenario) × 2 (functional fixedness) mixed ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of scenario, F 1 139 = 31.70 , p < .001 , η p 2 = .19 . Words processed in a survival scenario were recalled better than words processed in a moving scenario. There was also a significant main effect of functional fixedness, F 1 139 = 135.50 , p < .001 , η p 2 = .49 . Words low in functional fixedness were remembered better than words high in functional fixedness. The interaction between scenario and functional fixedness was also significant, F 1 139 = 8.32 , p = .005 , η p 2 = .06 .

Mean proportion of correct recall for each scenario, shown separately for words high and low in functional fixedness. The error bars represent standard errors of the means

Table ​ Table2 2 presents the median response times for the relevance ratings, separately for each scenario and word type. Response times for the ratings did not differ significantly between the scenarios, F 1 139 = 1.58 , p = .21 , η p 2 = .01 . There was a main effect for functional fixedness, F 1 139 = 14.65 , p < .001 , η p 2 = .10 . Response times for the words high in functional fixedness were significantly longer than those for words low in functional fixedness. There was also a significant interaction between scenario and functional fixedness, F 1 139 = 27.43 , p < .001 , η p 2 = .16 , indicating that response times for ratings took longest when words were high in functional fixedness and processed in the survival scenario.

Means and standard errors of participants’ median rating latencies for each scenario, shown separately for words high and low in functional fixedness

Figure ​ Figure2 2 displays recall performance as a function of the relevance ratings provided in the encoding phase. Obviously, higher relevance ratings are associated with higher levels of recall. Controlling for overall recall performance of the participants, in the survival condition the partial correlation between ratings and recall rates was significant for the words high ( r = .24; p < .001) and low ( r = .08; p < .009) in functional fixedness. The same pattern can be found for words processed in the moving scenario (partial correlation for words high in functional fixedness: r = .32; p < .001, and words low in functional fixedness: r = .23; p < .001). We also tested whether and – if so how – the effects of scenario and functional fixedness on recall performance are moderated by the relevance ratings the words receive in the encoding phase. To answer this question, it was necessary to combine ratings to cruder rating categories. Working with the original ratings would have implied a loss of 107 participants from the analysis because not every participant made use of every possible rating category. To avoid such a serious loss of data, we split the ratings in two categories with low (i.e., ratings 1–3) versus high (i.e., ratings 4 and 5) relevance judgments. Using this approach, only 13 participants had to be excluded because they did not provide data for every rating category (low vs. high), leaving a sample of N = 128 participants for analysis. Table ​ Table3 3 presents the mean recall proportions of this sample for the low (left side) versus high (right side) rating categories, separately for scenario and functional fixedness. A 2 (scenario) × 2 (functional fixedness) × 2 (rating categories) mixed ANOVA revealed significant main effects of scenario ( F 1,126 = 15.40 , p < .001 , η p 2 = .11 ), functional fixedness ( F 1,126 = 48.04 , p < .001 , η p 2 = .28 ), and ratings, F 1,126 = 126.73 , p < .001 , η p 2 = .50 . The interactions between scenario and ratings ( F 1,126 = 7.83 , p = .006 , η p 2 = .06 ) , and between functional fixedness and ratings was also significant, F 1,126 = 26.72 , p < .001 , η p 2 = .17 . The interaction between scenario and functional fixedness was not significant, F 1,126 < 0.01 , p = .99 , η p 2 < .001 . More importantly, the three-way interaction between scenario, functional fixedness, and ratings was significant, ( F 1,126 = 17.04 , p < .001 , η p 2 = .12 ), showing that the two-way interaction between scenario and functional fixedness evident in the aggregate data (see Fig. ​ Fig.1) 1 ) is very pronounced for words with low relevance ratings and does not show up in high ratings (see Table ​ Table3). 3 ). Also, the main effects of scenario and functional fixedness largely disappear for words with high relevance ratings, as evidenced by the significant two-way interactions involving the rating level.

Mean proportions of correct recall for each scenario, shown separately for words high and low in functional fixedness and each rating category. The error bars represent standard errors of the means

Means and standard deviation of participants’ recall proportions for each scenario, shown separately for words high and low in functional fixedness and words receiving low (1–3) versus high (4–5) relevance ratings

It is reasonable to assume that our memory systems have evolved to help us survive and thereby enhance our fitness (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2010 ). Researchers suggested that the survival-processing effect reflects how specific selection pressures shaped these memory systems (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008b , 2010 ; Weinstein et al., 2008 ). In line with these ideas, the survival-processing advantage proved to be a very robust and stable effect that is found in different populations (e.g., Kroneisen & Makerud, 2017 ; Nairne et al., 2007 ; Otgaar et al., 2010 ). It was replicated both in older adults (Nouchi, 2012 ) and in children (Aslan & Bäuml, 2012 ; Otgaar & Smeets, 2010 ). These well-replicated results have been argued to guide our understanding of cognitive “biases or tunings” (Nairne & Pandeirada, 2010 , p.2) that helped humans survive in ancestral environments.

However, our understanding of the survival-processing effect would remain incomplete without an understanding of the proximate cognitive mechanisms producing this benefit. One class of proximate explanations focuses on the nature of incidental encoding during the relevance-rating task. The richness of encoding hypothesis maintains that survival processing stimulates participants to generate a variety of both usual and unusual ideas on how to use objects to survive (e.g., using a chair to fight off a tiger). These ideas may later serve as powerful retrieval cues in the unexpected memory test. In contrast, scenarios such as the moving scenario provide less opportunity to come up with divergent ideas about how to use these objects (e.g., a chair can be used to sit on it or to stand on it while attaching something). Consistent with this hypothesis, Röer et al. ( 2013 ) showed that the survival scenario encourages participants to generate more ideas about how to use items. Furthermore, the strength of the survival-processing advantage tends to increase with the number of unique relevance arguments generated per item. Consequently, treatments that hinder or interfere with the generation of many creative ideas in the survival scenario reduce or even abolish the effect (Kroneisen & Erdfelder, 2011 ; Kroneisen et al., 2013 ; Kroneisen et al., 2014 , 2016 ).

Bell et al. ( 2015 ) argued that thinking about novel uses of objects requires retrieving characteristics of these objects (e.g., form, material, stability) from long-term memory and then simulating their use in the given situation. We showed that objects differ in their potential to use them in novel ways. Some items can be used in many different ways. These items have a very low level of functional fixedness. Other items can mainly be used for their common function. They have a high degree of functional fixedness. Based on these ideas, we created wordlists of objects that differed in their level of functional fixedness. We assumed that objects low in functional fixedness allow participants to create many different and novel using functions, independently of the scenario. Therefore, for these words, a higher number of retrieval cues can be created and used in the later recall task. This effect should be especially pronounced in the survival condition because novel, creative ideas that maximize chances of survival are a key component of this scenario. The moving scenario, in contrast, prompts people to think about prototypical uses of objects in the first place.

We experimentally tested the effect of an item’s functional fixedness on memory performance in the survival and the moving scenario. Replicating prior findings, participants who evaluated words in the context of an imagined survival scenario demonstrated enhanced performance on a later memory test. In addition, we observed an effect of functional fixedness: Words low in functional fixedness were remembered better. Furthermore, we found a significant interaction between functional fixedness and scenario: The survival-processing benefit was strongest for words low in functional fixedness. All three effects are in line with our hypotheses.

Participants took more time to rate the relevance of words high in functional fixedness. Furthermore, we found that ratings required most time when the words high in functional fixedness were processed in the survival scenario, suggesting that participants struggled to find useful functions for these objects, especially in the survival condition.

Consistent with previous findings (e.g., Aslan & Bäuml, 2012 ; Butler et al., 2009 ; Kroneisen & Makerud, 2017 ; Nairne et al., 2007 ), congruity had an effect on memory performance: Higher relevance ratings were associated with higher recall rates. Overall, items that are congruent with or relevant for the processing task are remembered better. One interpretation of these congruency effects is that congruent items stimulate more ideas about possible uses of these objects (Bell, Röer, & Buchner, 2013 ). Röer et al. ( 2013 ) demonstrated that congruency effects in the survival-processing paradigm can be explained by the number of ideas generated during encoding. Their participants generated more ideas in response to scenario-congruent than to scenario-incongruent items.

In our experiment, both the survival-processing advantage and the low-functional fixedness advantage hold even if the relevance-rating level is controlled for (see Fig. ​ Fig.2). 2 ). This finding is important because it shows that both the survival-processing advantage and the low-functional fixedness benefit cannot be explained as by-products of simple congruency effects. Moreover, either effect tends to be more pronounced for low ratings compared to high ratings (cf. Fig. ​ Fig.2). 2 ). Why should this be the case? As discussed above, the survival scenario encourages participants to generate creative ideas about how to use items. This effect should be strongest for items that do not fit in the scenario (i.e., objects with low relevance ratings), because in these cases people are forced to think about novel uses of these objects. In addition, it is easier to find novel uses for items with low functional fixedness, resulting in strongest memory benefits when survival-processing refers to scenario-incongruent items low in functional fixedness. Thus, the observed result pattern is perfectly in line with the richness of the encoding explanation of survival-processing benefits.

In sum, we learned more about the processes underlying the survival-processing effect. Our results support the idea that survival processing involves thinking about common and novel functions of objects when rating the relevance of items. In contrast, the moving scenario mainly involves thinking about common uses of objects. The more novel and distinct functions of objects a person is able to generate, the better later memory retrieval. As shown in our present research, both the stimulating survival-processing context and low functional fixedness of objects contribute to this memory advantage.

Open practices statement

The word material for the main experiment can be found in the Appendix . The experiment was not preregistered.

Word material used in the experiment. In the English translation the same word (battery) is used for two different German words (Akku and Batterie)

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Functional fixedness: problem solution as a function of observing responses

• Problem solving and Choice behavior
• Published: 01 March 2014
• Volume 1 , pages 117–118, ( 1964 )

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• Sam Glucksberg 1  

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When Ss solve functional fixedness problems do they formulate the solution and then look for the object needed, or does perception of the functionally fixed object itself trigger solution? Duncker’s candle problem was administered in tactual form so that discrete observing responses (touching the functionally fixed object, a box filled with tacks) could be observed and counted by E. Problem solution occurred upon contact with the functionally fixed object. The specific contact immediately preceding problem solution was usually adventitious.

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Heuristic Encyclopedia

Find everything you wanted to know about a heuristic

Our brain is a wondrous thing, but it's certainly not perfect. It uses mental shortcuts or heuristics to make 95% of decisions which can sometimes lead you to make erroneous choices. Heuristic hacks will help you avoid these common decision pitfalls, both at home and at work.

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7.3 Problem Solving

Learning objectives.

• Describe problem solving strategies
• Define algorithm and heuristic
• Explain some common roadblocks to effective problem solving

People face problems every day—usually, multiple problems throughout the day. Sometimes these problems are straightforward: To double a recipe for pizza dough, for example, all that is required is that each ingredient in the recipe be doubled. Sometimes, however, the problems we encounter are more complex. For example, say you have a work deadline, and you must mail a printed copy of a report to your supervisor by the end of the business day. The report is time-sensitive and must be sent overnight. You finished the report last night, but your printer will not work today. What should you do? First, you need to identify the problem and then apply a strategy for solving the problem.

Problem-Solving Strategies

When you are presented with a problem—whether it is a complex mathematical problem or a broken printer, how do you solve it? Before finding a solution to the problem, the problem must first be clearly identified. After that, one of many problem solving strategies can be applied, hopefully resulting in a solution.

A problem-solving strategy is a plan of action used to find a solution. Different strategies have different action plans associated with them ( Table 7.2 ). For example, a well-known strategy is trial and error . The old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” describes trial and error. In terms of your broken printer, you could try checking the ink levels, and if that doesn’t work, you could check to make sure the paper tray isn’t jammed. Or maybe the printer isn’t actually connected to your laptop. When using trial and error, you would continue to try different solutions until you solved your problem. Although trial and error is not typically one of the most time-efficient strategies, it is a commonly used one.

Another type of strategy is an algorithm. An algorithm is a problem-solving formula that provides you with step-by-step instructions used to achieve a desired outcome (Kahneman, 2011). You can think of an algorithm as a recipe with highly detailed instructions that produce the same result every time they are performed. Algorithms are used frequently in our everyday lives, especially in computer science. When you run a search on the Internet, search engines like Google use algorithms to decide which entries will appear first in your list of results. Facebook also uses algorithms to decide which posts to display on your newsfeed. Can you identify other situations in which algorithms are used?

A heuristic is another type of problem solving strategy. While an algorithm must be followed exactly to produce a correct result, a heuristic is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. A “rule of thumb” is an example of a heuristic. Such a rule saves the person time and energy when making a decision, but despite its time-saving characteristics, it is not always the best method for making a rational decision. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, but the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):

• When one is faced with too much information
• When the time to make a decision is limited
• When the decision to be made is unimportant
• When there is access to very little information to use in making the decision
• When an appropriate heuristic happens to come to mind in the same moment

Working backwards is a useful heuristic in which you begin solving the problem by focusing on the end result. Consider this example: You live in Washington, D.C. and have been invited to a wedding at 4 PM on Saturday in Philadelphia. Knowing that Interstate 95 tends to back up any day of the week, you need to plan your route and time your departure accordingly. If you want to be at the wedding service by 3:30 PM, and it takes 2.5 hours to get to Philadelphia without traffic, what time should you leave your house? You use the working backwards heuristic to plan the events of your day on a regular basis, probably without even thinking about it.

Another useful heuristic is the practice of accomplishing a large goal or task by breaking it into a series of smaller steps. Students often use this common method to complete a large research project or long essay for school. For example, students typically brainstorm, develop a thesis or main topic, research the chosen topic, organize their information into an outline, write a rough draft, revise and edit the rough draft, develop a final draft, organize the references list, and proofread their work before turning in the project. The large task becomes less overwhelming when it is broken down into a series of small steps.

Everyday Connection

Solving puzzles.

Problem-solving abilities can improve with practice. Many people challenge themselves every day with puzzles and other mental exercises to sharpen their problem-solving skills. Sudoku puzzles appear daily in most newspapers. Typically, a sudoku puzzle is a 9×9 grid. The simple sudoku below ( Figure 7.8 ) is a 4×4 grid. To solve the puzzle, fill in the empty boxes with a single digit: 1, 2, 3, or 4. Here are the rules: The numbers must total 10 in each bolded box, each row, and each column; however, each digit can only appear once in a bolded box, row, and column. Time yourself as you solve this puzzle and compare your time with a classmate.

Here is another popular type of puzzle ( Figure 7.9 ) that challenges your spatial reasoning skills. Connect all nine dots with four connecting straight lines without lifting your pencil from the paper:

Take a look at the “Puzzling Scales” logic puzzle below ( Figure 7.10 ). Sam Loyd, a well-known puzzle master, created and refined countless puzzles throughout his lifetime (Cyclopedia of Puzzles, n.d.).

Pitfalls to Problem Solving

Not all problems are successfully solved, however. What challenges stop us from successfully solving a problem? Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Imagine a person in a room that has four doorways. One doorway that has always been open in the past is now locked. The person, accustomed to exiting the room by that particular doorway, keeps trying to get out through the same doorway even though the other three doorways are open. The person is stuck—but she just needs to go to another doorway, instead of trying to get out through the locked doorway. A mental set is where you persist in approaching a problem in a way that has worked in the past but is clearly not working now.

Functional fixedness is a type of mental set where you cannot perceive an object being used for something other than what it was designed for. During the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, NASA engineers at Mission Control had to overcome functional fixedness to save the lives of the astronauts aboard the spacecraft. An explosion in a module of the spacecraft damaged multiple systems. The astronauts were in danger of being poisoned by rising levels of carbon dioxide because of problems with the carbon dioxide filters. The engineers found a way for the astronauts to use spare plastic bags, tape, and air hoses to create a makeshift air filter, which saved the lives of the astronauts.

Link to Learning

Check out this Apollo 13 scene where the group of NASA engineers are given the task of overcoming functional fixedness.

Researchers have investigated whether functional fixedness is affected by culture. In one experiment, individuals from the Shuar group in Ecuador were asked to use an object for a purpose other than that for which the object was originally intended. For example, the participants were told a story about a bear and a rabbit that were separated by a river and asked to select among various objects, including a spoon, a cup, erasers, and so on, to help the animals. The spoon was the only object long enough to span the imaginary river, but if the spoon was presented in a way that reflected its normal usage, it took participants longer to choose the spoon to solve the problem. (German & Barrett, 2005). The researchers wanted to know if exposure to highly specialized tools, as occurs with individuals in industrialized nations, affects their ability to transcend functional fixedness. It was determined that functional fixedness is experienced in both industrialized and nonindustrialized cultures (German & Barrett, 2005).

In order to make good decisions, we use our knowledge and our reasoning. Often, this knowledge and reasoning is sound and solid. Sometimes, however, we are swayed by biases or by others manipulating a situation. For example, let’s say you and three friends wanted to rent a house and had a combined target budget of $1,600. The realtor shows you only very run-down houses for $1,600 and then shows you a very nice house for $2,000. Might you ask each person to pay more in rent to get the $2,000 home? Why would the realtor show you the run-down houses and the nice house? The realtor may be challenging your anchoring bias. An anchoring bias occurs when you focus on one piece of information when making a decision or solving a problem. In this case, you’re so focused on the amount of money you are willing to spend that you may not recognize what kinds of houses are available at that price point.

The confirmation bias is the tendency to focus on information that confirms your existing beliefs. For example, if you think that your professor is not very nice, you notice all of the instances of rude behavior exhibited by the professor while ignoring the countless pleasant interactions he is involved in on a daily basis. Hindsight bias leads you to believe that the event you just experienced was predictable, even though it really wasn’t. In other words, you knew all along that things would turn out the way they did. Representative bias describes a faulty way of thinking, in which you unintentionally stereotype someone or something; for example, you may assume that your professors spend their free time reading books and engaging in intellectual conversation, because the idea of them spending their time playing volleyball or visiting an amusement park does not fit in with your stereotypes of professors.

Finally, the availability heuristic is a heuristic in which you make a decision based on an example, information, or recent experience that is that readily available to you, even though it may not be the best example to inform your decision . Biases tend to “preserve that which is already established—to maintain our preexisting knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and hypotheses” (Aronson, 1995; Kahneman, 2011). These biases are summarized in Table 7.3 .

Please visit this site to see a clever music video that a high school teacher made to explain these and other cognitive biases to his AP psychology students.

Were you able to determine how many marbles are needed to balance the scales in Figure 7.10 ? You need nine. Were you able to solve the problems in Figure 7.8 and Figure 7.9 ? Here are the answers ( Figure 7.11 ).

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Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/psychology/pages/1-introduction

• Authors: Rose M. Spielman, Kathryn Dumper, William Jenkins, Arlene Lacombe, Marilyn Lovett, Marion Perlmutter
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Psychology
• Publication date: Dec 8, 2014
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/psychology/pages/1-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/psychology/pages/7-3-problem-solving

© Feb 9, 2022 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.