Designing creative spaces: an experimental examination of the effect of a nature poster on divergent thinking

This paper reports the results of an independent samples experiment designed to examine the effects of the presence of a large poster depicting a natural woodland scene on individual performance on two Divergent Thinking tasks. In comparison to the no-poster control condition, the presentation of a large poster depicting a nature scene was found to lead to greater levels of creativity as rated by judges who were blind to the experimental design. The effects of the large poster on Divergent Thinking were found to hold when controlling for Openness-to-Experience and Mood. Exploratory analyses of participant ratings of room characteristics indicated that the mechanism underlying the posters' effect related to elevated stimulation. Practitioner summary: This study compared the effects of presenting a large poster depicting a natural woodland scene (experimental condition) versus no poster (control condition) on individual creative thinking. Three judges, who were unaware of the design of the study, did not know the participant responses were from two different conditions and who did not facilitate the experiment rated the responses of the participants who were exposed to the large poster as significantly more creative.