Can Creativity Be Improved by an Attention-Broadening Training Program? An Exploratory Study Focusing on Team Sports

ABSTRACT

A look at a number of recent experiments reveals that the interaction between breadth of attention and creative performance is mainly based on correlational studies and laboratory creativity tasks, yet task complexity is seldom taken into consideration. Discussion of several methodological aspects recommends the field of sport in particular as a fruitful area in which complex behavior can be studied in a complex context.

An exploratory 6-month longitudinal study (n = 48) proved the influence of an attention-broadening training program on the development of creative performance in the area of team sports. Creative performance was measured by a real-world sport-specific creativity task with 2 different kinds of complexity levels. A comparison between a control group and a treatment group, which focused on training a narrow breadth of attention, showed that the creative performance improved significantly (partial χ² = .51). An attention-broadening training program facilitated greater improvements in creative performance in complex tasks than in simple tasks. The results of this exploratory study are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications.

The study was supported by the Federal Institute of Sport Science (VF 07/06/04/2005). Thanks to Andrea Herzog, Thorsten Büch, Thomas Gwechenberger, Raquel Rodriguez Moreno, Raquel Rosa, Katarina Schrade, and Claudia Schükler who trained the treament groups. Many thanks to Michael Hammermeister, Konni Bassemir, and Erik Granacher, who judged the creative thinking of all children. Special thanks go to Joe Kasof, Philip Furley, the editor, and three anonymous reviewers for many inspirations and comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Thanks as well to all the children who participated in this study.

Notes

Note. pos. = positive, ADD = attention deficit disorder, neg. = negative, CAQ = creativity achievement questionnaire, CPS = creativity personality scale, RAT = remote associates test, ADHD = attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

¹The effects of nonaffective bodily feedback produced by arm flexion and extension on creativity can be ruled out because in the GTS-h, both contraction forms are involved (cf. Friedman & Förster, 2000).