The Effects of Short-Term Meditation on the Creativity of Novice Designers: A Pilot Design Task Study Using TTCT-Figural Assessment

Abstract

Creativity is long regarded as one of the fundamental traits that indicates design capability. The concept of creativity encompasses the capacity to produce innovative and novel concepts or ideas, to devise or articulate imagination and intellect, and to stimulate the potential of imagination and ingenuity embodying their capacity to conceive, craft, and develop innovative ideas for products. Previous studies have revealed the connection and functionality between meditation and creativity. However, general creativity measurements, which studies to date have mainly focused on, might not be able to demonstrate the performance of designers in a creative process adequately. Therefore, this study applied a design task-based evaluation with traditional TTCT assessment, whichmightbemoresuitabletodescribethecreativeperformanceofnovicedesigners. The study aims to explore: (1) the relationship between short-term meditation and creativity; (2) the effects of short-term meditation on the design qualities in design tasks of novice designers. 42 first-year design students were recruited and were divided into meditation group (n = 24) and control group (n = 18). Participants conducted a demographic survey and the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT, in its figural variant) firstly. The meditation group was then given a 110minute audio tape-based meditation intervention, and the control group was given a 110-minute audio tape intervention, which is a recording of scientific articles. Both interventions were performed twice a week on the weekends. After that, TTCT was given to the participants again. Then each participant received an interview on the changes in mood state and creativity. After the TTCT on the second day, the participants completed the Design with Morphological Table Task (DwMT) to assess their design qualities in a product design task. Through data analysis, TTCT results indicate that short-term meditation can significantly improve the creativity of novice designers and the meditation group outperformed the control group significantly in fluency and elaboration. DwMT results show that the meditation group significantly provided better design qualities than the control group.