Jonah Lehrer has a post

about why those poor BP engineers should take a break. They should step away from the dry-erase board and go for a walk. They should take a long shower. They should think about anything but the thousands of barrels of toxic black sludge oozing from the pipe.

He weaves together a few stories illustrating why creativity flows best when it is not rushed.  This is something I generally agree with and his post is good read but I think one of his examples needs a second look.

In the early 1960s, Glucksberg gave subjects a standard test of creativity known as the Duncker candle problem. The problem has a simple premise: a subject is given a cardboard box containing a few thumbtacks, a book of matches, and a waxy candle. They are told to determine how to attach the candle to piece of corkboard so that it can burn properly and no wax drips onto the floor.

Oversimplifying a bit, to solve this problem there is one quick-and-dirty method that is likely to fail and then another less-obvious solution that works every time.  (The answer is in Jonah’s post so think first before clicking through.)

Now here is where Glucksberg’s study gets interesting. Some subjects were randomly assigned to a “high drive” group, which was told that those who solved the task in the shortest amount of time would receive \$20.

These subjects, it turned out, solved the problem on average 3.5 minutes later than the control subjects who were given no incentives.  This is taken to be an example of the perverse effect of incentives on creative output.

The high drive subjects were playing a game.  This generates different incentives than if the subjects were simply paid for speed.  They are being paid to be faster than the others.  To see the difference, suppose that the obvious solution works with probability p and in that case it takes only 3.5 minutes.  The creative solution always works but it takes 5 minutes to come up with it. If p is small then someone who is just paid for speed will not try the obvious solution because it is very likely to fail.  He would then have to come up with the creative solution and his total time will be 8.5 minutes.

But if he is competing to be the fastest then he is not trying to maximize his expected speed.  As a matter of fact, if he expects everyone else to try the obvious solution and there are N others competing, then the probability is $1 - (1-p)^N$ that the fastest time will be 3.5 minutes.  This approaches 1 very quickly as N increases.  He will almost certainly lose if he tries to come up with a creative solution.

So it is an equilibrium for everyone to try the quick-and-dirty solution, and when they do so, almost all of them (on average a fraction 1-p of them) will fail and take 3.5 minutes longer than those in the control group.