What is it about?

This research tested whether seeing surprising things helps people think more creatively. Many people believe that experiencing something unexpected – like seeing an umbrella in a bathroom or someone eating a lightbulb – should inspire more original ideas. The researchers conducted four online experiments with nearly 1,000 participants who looked at pictures of objects in either normal or surprising locations, then tried to think of creative uses for those objects. The results were unexpected: whilst people definitely found the unusual placements surprising and interesting, this didn't lead them to generate more creative ideas. Whether someone saw a mug on a kitchen counter (normal) or floating in mid-air (surprising), they came up with equally creative suggestions for what to do with the mug. This happened consistently across all four experiments, even when the researchers tried different types of surprising images and controlled for various factors that might affect the results. The findings suggest that simply disrupting people's expectations isn't enough to boost creativity, at least not in this type of task. Just because something catches your attention and seems surprising doesn't automatically make your brain more creative. The relationship between surprise and creativity appears to be more complicated than commonly believed.

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Why is it important?

This research challenges widespread assumptions about how creativity works. In business, education, and popular culture, people are often told to "shake things up" or "break routines" to become more creative. Companies invest in unusual office environments, teachers use unexpected activities, and creativity guides promote surprising experiences as ways to boost innovation. This study suggests these approaches may not work as simply as assumed. The findings have practical implications for anyone trying to enhance creativity in workplaces, classrooms, or personal projects. Rather than relying on random surprising experiences, more targeted approaches may be needed. The research suggests that for surprise to genuinely boost creativity, it may need to be personally meaningful, require active engagement, or involve trying to make sense of the surprising event – not just passively observing something unexpected. For scientists studying creativity, this work establishes important baseline evidence. It shows that we need to distinguish between recognising something is surprising (cognitive surprise) and actually feeling surprised (emotional surprise), and that only certain types of surprising experiences may fuel creative thinking. This helps refine theories about how breakthrough ideas emerge and what conditions truly support innovation.

Perspectives

Writing this publication was a joy for me because it allowed me to work with two researchers with whom I have a long standing and productive collaboration. I loved discovering the complexity of surprise as a psychological phenomenon. The distinction between perceiving something as surprising versus feeling genuine surprise may be crucial. It was also great to be able to report a null results and this work reminds me that intuition isn't always reliable and that rigorous testing is essential even for seemingly obvious ideas.

Wendy Ross
London Metropolitan University

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This page is a summary of: Incongruent objects are surprising but do not inspire more original ideas., Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts, December 2025, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/aca0000829.
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