In addition, the experiment was carried out later in 1952 by giving one group of participants an empty box without the drawing nails, while the other group of participants received the box with the drawing nails in it. Participants who received the box without the pins in the box were twice as likely to solve the problem.6 The box was no longer used to hold the nails; Therefore, its functionality was not tied to a single use. Functional fixation, like other biases and heuristics, makes it easier for our brains to understand the world around us. Often, we can rely on the information we have already received about an object to use it correctly. If you looked at a cup of tea every morning and asked, “What`s the point?” you`d probably waste a lot of time in the morning if you could make tea. We allow ourselves to make a “mental shortcut” when we see this cup of tea and automatically see it as a container for our tea. But PepsiCo realized they were probably suffering from functional fixation. Contrary to its name, functional fixation is not really “fixed”. People who are self-aware can consciously work to challenge and overcome prejudice. Through conscious innovative thinking, everyone can improve their problem-solving skills. Here are some ways to minimize functional mounting distortions and get out of the box.

We can actually ignore this information and still process his actions through a filter that fits the stereotype. It`s a kind of functional fixation in terms of how we form impressions of other people. More recently, Frank and Ramscar (2003)[4] gave Stanford University students a written version of the candle problem. If the problem was given with instructions identical to those of the original experiment, only 23% of the students were able to solve the problem. For another group of students, noun phrases such as “Correspondence Box” were underlined, and for a third group, names (e.g., “Box”) were underlined. For these two groups, 55% and 47% respectively were able to solve the problem effectively. In a follow-up experiment, all names except “Box” were underlined and similar results were obtained. The authors concluded that students` performance depended on their representation of the lexical concept of “box” rather than on instructive manipulation.

The ability to overcome the functional fixation depended on a flexible representation of the word box, allowing students to see that the box can be used when a candle is attached to a wall. Functional fixation is generally seen as a barrier to creativity and problem solving. It can be difficult to accomplish simple tasks, such as hanging an image or generating innovative solutions in the fields of science and technology. It may even play a role in maintaining stereotypes and gender equality. The first step to overcoming functional fixation is to be aware of it. The more you recognize and accept it, the easier it is to consider a variety of alternative perspectives. When you eliminate the excesses, that is, the details of the problem, think more clearly about the solution. Functional fixation is practical in everyday life and crucial for developing expertise and specialization in areas where it is important to find quick fixes. But as we saw in Duncker`s experiment, this type of cognitive impairment is the enemy of creativity.

Functional fixation prevents us from seeing alternative solutions and makes problem solving more difficult. Children are excellent at overcoming functional fixation. You can see this in the evidence (Vaisarova & Carlson, 2021). Functional fixation is a type of cognitive bias that involves a tendency to see objects only in a certain way. For example, you might think of a zipper as something that can only be used to hold paper on a bulletin board. But what other uses could the article have? Fortunately, the tomato was brought to Italy around the 17th century. Street vendors in Naples started putting it on flatbread and pizza was born. This is an example of using an object in a unique way that overcomes functional fastening. Munoz-Rubke F, Olson D, Will R, James KH. Functional fixation in the use of tools: learning modality, limits and individual differences.

Acta Psychol (Amst). 2018;190:11-26. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.06.006 In the tests, 5-year-olds show no signs of functional fixation. It has been argued that this is because at the age of 5, any goal to be achieved with one object corresponds to any other goal. However, by the age of 7, children have developed a tendency to treat the originally intended purpose of an object as something special. [2] If a person has difficulty making the adjustment, this is an example of culturally functional fixation. It can be very difficult to escape a state of mind that has been so deeply ingrained in our thinking throughout our lives. In a classic experiment that demonstrated functional fixation, Duncker (1945)[1] gave participants a candle, a box of drawing nails, and a book of matches, and asked them to attach the candle to the wall so that it would not flow onto the chart below. Duncker found that participants tried to attach the candle directly to the wall with the pins or stick it to the wall by melting it. Very few of them thought to use the inside of the box as a candle holder and attach it to the wall. In Duncker`s words, participants were “obsessed” with the box`s normal function of holding tear nails and could not conceptualize them in a way that could solve the problem.