A new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research suggests that quiet and isolation are not always the best conditions for being creative.
The study had participants take part in mental games and creativity exercises in one of three conditions: total silence, moderately noisy, and loud.
The people working in moderately noisy conditions scored higher than the others.
It may be that a variety of stimuli prompt the mind to make more diverse associations, which is at the heart of creativity. However, the choice of locations probably is important. A coffee shop, for instance, is a place where you're not likely to be interrupted and where the distractions are fleeting (compared to a bar that has a ball game on the TV). It may also be the case that different phases of your creative process might respond to different conditions.
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