Constraint removal

pagecreatediverge

Break fixation by removing the thing the human is protecting.

Variants

• default

Data fields

The fields a spec's page can set for this component (see switchback show constraint-removal --json):

• constraint

Grounding

Helps: when an unexamined assumption is blocking every option; dropping a self-imposed constraint breaks impasses in puzzle studies, but removing a real constraint on purpose has not been tested

Backfires: when the constraint was doing useful work: constraints can raise creativity as well as lower it, and an idea designed without the constraint may not survive its return

• CImpasses in problem solving are overcome when the solver relaxes a self-imposed constraint on the solution, so deliberately removing a constraint makes new solution paths available.Knoblich et al. (1999), Knoblich, Ohlsson & Raney (2001), Moreau & Dahl (2005), Acar, Tarakci & van Knippenberg (2019)
• DSeparating idea generation from evaluation, with judgement deferred until generation is done, increases the number of ideas without reducing, and sometimes increasing, the number of good ones.Osborn (1953), Applied Imagination

What the grades mean