The Candle Problem
‘The Candle Problem’ is a classic experiment created by the Austrian psychiatrist Karl Duncker in 1945.
We ask science writers Jonah Lehrer and Daniel Pink to explain what this exercise can teach us about creativity, motivation and decision making.
A volunteer is brought into a room and given a candle, a box of drawing-pins and a book of matches. They are asked to attach the candle to the wall so that the wax doesn’t drip on the floor below. Ninety per cent of those tested pursue the same two incorrect strategies. The person who solves the problem is one who, rather than seeing the box as a receptacle for the drawing pins, sees it as something that can be used as part of the solution. The box should be pinned to the wall and the candle placed in it.
JONAH LEHRER: I have an embarrassing confession: the first time I was given the candle problem I gave up after only a few minutes. I was convinced the problem was impossible and got angry at the scientist when he suggested that I keep on trying. (I was fixated on pinning the candle to the wall with the tacs, but the candle kept on splintering.) Here’s my question: Was this a failure of creativity? Or a failure of motivation? And what’s the difference?
DANIEL PINK: Ah, great minds. My strategy was to melt the side of the candle and try to adhere it to the wall. And like you, I quickly gave up. So while ours was partly a failure of creativity, it was really a failure of persistence. Had we stuck with it, we would have solved the problem – eventually. And that’s where I think motivation comes in. People who are given financial incentives to solve the candle problem actually solve it less quickly than those who solve it on their own terms. Over to you: How can we encourage persistence and grit without resorting to bribes?
JL: I wish I had the secret recipe for teaching persistence. Unless a person is intrinsically motivated, and has the grit to stick with their creative process, they’ll never manage to invent anything worthwhile. Creativity, in other words, isn’t just aha moments and sudden epiphanies – it also requires careful editing, fine-tuning and tweaking. The good news is that scientists are making important progress towards identifying those ‘non-cognitive’ traits that allow some people – gritty souls like Edison and Einstein – to persist until their promising ideas ripen into solutions. I’m particularly encouraged by research documenting the benefits of early childhood interventions. For instance, James Heckman has demonstrated that kids in preschool show dramatic increases in grit and self-control that last into adulthood. So maybe that’s the way to grow the creativity of a society: teach three year olds how to play with blocks.
DP: That seems like a far more sensible intervention than the ones we’re using now – remedial education (or prison) on one extreme, dunder-headed corporate training on the other. Besides, blocks are cheap! The broader point perhaps is that science is showing that qualities deeper than skills – traits, habits, attitudes – contribute massively to high performance. The more we understand these things, including the curious dynamics of motivation, the better off we’ll all be.
