The most dangerous creativity study: fluency, timed writing, creative press, and challenging students to engage flow

This study addressed how environmental press might enhance the creative thinking skill of fluency in timed journal writing. Further, this study investigated whether Flow state could be induced through the use of a gamified online writing app which forced participants on continually generate text for a specified time. Participants were divided into two treatment groups, one which wrote using a gamified writing app, and one which simply typed journals without the app. Each group was asked to write timed daily journals, and a word count was done to determine the effect of the writing app on verbal and ideational fluency. It was found that when provided timed open journal writing opportunities, participants generated similarly greater numbers of words and ideas regardless of app use. Students who used the writing app tended to self-report better attitudes about writing and higher self-reported levels of creativity than those who did not.