Drink to me!-Alcohol and Creativity
“Drink to me, drink to my health. You know I can’t drink anymore.” Picasso
Can consuming Alcohol increase Creativity? The question always received an affirmative answer, mainly because, people thought so. In other words, People as usual overestimated the power of alcohol when it comes to creative performance.
The truth of the matter is far from that. In reality, people become more creative when they think they have consumed alcohol (Lang et al., 1984, Lapp et al., 1994), which would be nothing more than a mere placebo effect.
On the other hand mild Alcohol does seem to have an effect when it comes to creative problem solving. Often times during an attempt to solve a problem, the person may encounter a road block while attempting to get the solution required.
This road block will often causes what is known as mental fixation (Smith & Blankenship). At this point, research has shown that Alcohol consumption is often found to reduce the fixation effect by loosening the attention focus facilitating a broader approach.
A study was carried out to find out if Alcohol contributed to Divergent thinking and high cognitive control and subsequent creative problem solving abilities.
35 participants were selected comprising of males and females for the research. The participant were offered drinks which were mildly alcoholic and then were requested to watch a TV documentary for an hour and half. Probably that will be the time required for alcohol to spread out in the system.
The present study examined the effects of alcohol on objective and subjective levels of intoxication, executive control, and two standard tasks of creative potential: creative problem solving in the Remote Associates Task and divergent thinking ability.
According to the study, alcohol in modest amounts definitely supports Creativity, but excessive alcohol consumption typically impairs creative productivity (Kerr, Sheffer, Chambers, & Hallowell, 1991).
But the positive effects appear to be restrictive to certain phase but other phases such evaluation and implementation of ideas usually suffer from reduced cognitive control (Norlander, 1999).
It is also imperative to note that High cognitive control is responsible for quality Divergent thinking. And one capable of divergent thinking will come up with multiple ways to solve the same problem. Also divergent thinking typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing and in a “non-linear” manner .
Alcohol intoxication neither improved nor harmed divergent thinking (DT) performance. This is consistent with some previous findings (Lang et al., 1984).
The entire study focused on mild levels of alcohol intoxication.
Famous Painters known for their high levels of alcohol consumptions: Picasso, Mark Rothko, George Montgomery, Paul Gaugin, Joan Mitchell, Frans Hals.
All faced depression and were pronounced alcoholics.
