Fluid movements enhance creative fluency: A replication of Slepian and Ambady (2012)

Abstract

Bodily movements representing abstract concepts (e.g., fluidity) can affect divergent creative thinking. A recent study showed that participants who performed fluid arm movements by tracing curved line-drawings (the fluid condition) subsequently generated a larger number of more original alternative uses for newspapers than did those who traced angular line-drawings (the non-fluid condition). This suggests that fluid movements enhance fluency and originality in divergent creative thinking. To replicate these findings, we employed the same task with a larger Japanese sample. Participants in the fluid condition generated more uses for newspapers than in the non-fluid condition, regardless of confounding variables: mood, subjective difficulty of the tracing, and daily use of newspapers. In contrast to previous findings, there were no effects on originality. Our results suggest that fluidity enacted by arm movements robustly enhances creative fluency, although other factors (e.g., culture) could interfere with its effect on originality.