Quantifying the Qualitative: Measuring the Insight Experience

Abstract

No scales currently exist that measure variability in the insight experience. Two scales were created to measure two factors hypothesized to be key drivers of the insight experience: insight radicality (i.e., perceived deviation between previous and new problem representations) and restructuring experience (i.e., the subjective experience of the problem representation being restructured). Data were collected online in two studies using a Mechanical Turk sample (N = 212) and a Zoomerang sample (N = 168) that reported on past experiences working to solve a challenging problem at work. Insight radicality and restructuring experience each positively correlated with and accounted for unique variance in (a) the nature of insight experiences (e.g., intensity), (b) insight terminology used to describe them (e.g., “a breakthrough”), and (c) perceived insight impact (e.g., on field/discipline). The 2 scales accounted for unique variance in these variables both individually and above and beyond improved processing fluency from the insight. The new scales offer a means of establishing the generalizability of experimental findings to insights in natural settings and of more precisely characterizing insight experiences across both experimental and natural settings.

Acknowledgments

This article drew from dissertation data. I would like to thank professors Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Jeanne Nakamura, Dale Berger, Patricia Easton, and R. Keith Sawyer for their valuable feedback on the dissertation on which this article is based. I am also very grateful to Janice Adelman for her feedback and suggestions on the dissertation and on this article.