By Susie Neilson

I want to ask you a favor. Yes， you， reader. I have a pair of pants. Tell me： how many different ways can I put a pair of pants to use？

Now， imagine youre an architect1. Same question.

Now， imagine youre Bill Gates. A scuba diver2. A medieval knight3. You still have the pants. What can you come up with？

What you just practiced is an exercise called “psychological halloweenism4”. This action refers to the conscious act of wearing another self， and according to psychiatrist Srini Pillay，5 its essential to being creative.

One great irony about our collective obsession with creativity is that we tend to frame it in uncreative ways.6 That is to say， most of us marry creativity to our concept of self： Were either“creative” people or we arent， without much of a middle ground.7 Im just not a creative person！ A frustrated student might say in art class， while another might blame her talent at painting for her difficulties in math： Im very right-brained8.

Pillay， a tech entrepreneur and Harvard professor， has spent a good chunk of his career subverting these ideas.9 Pillay believes that the key to unlocking your creative potential is to defy the clichéd advice that urges you to“believe in yourself.”10 In fact， you should do the exact opposite： believe you are someone else.

In a recent column for Harvard Business Review， Pillay pointed to a 2016 study demonstrating the “stereotype11 effect，” or the impact of stereotypes on ones behavior. The authors， education psychologists Denis Dumas and Kevin Dunbar， divided their college-student subjects into three categories， instructing the members of one group to think of themselves as “eccentric poets” and the members of another to imagine they were “rigid librarians” （people in the third category， the control group，12 were left alone for this part）. The researchers then presented participants with 10 ordinary objects， including a fork， a carrot， and a pair of pants， and asked them to come up with as many different uses as possible for each one. Those who were asked to imagine themselves as “eccentric poets” came up with the widest range of ideas for the objects， whereas those in the “rigid librarian”group had the fewest. Meanwhile， the researchers found only small differences in students creativity levels across academic majors—in fact， the physics majors inhabiting the personas of “eccentric poets”came up with more ideas than the art majors did.13

These results， write Dumas and Dunbar， suggest that creativity is not an individual trait， but a “malleable product of context and perspective.”14 Everyone can be creative， as long as they feel like creative people （thus， the talented painter from the example above reinforces her creativity by aligning her self-concept with it）.15

Pillays work takes this a step further： He argues that identifying yourself with creativity is less powerful than the creative act of imagining youre somebody else. This exercise， which he calls “psychological halloweenism，” refers to the conscious action of inhabiting another persona—an inner costuming16 of the self. An actor， for example， may employ psychological halloweenism as a matter of course， whereas a grown child caught in decades worth of family expectations may find it nearly impossible （which is perhaps why siblings tend to rehash the same dull arguments ad nauseam）.17

According to him， psychological halloweenism works because it is an act of “conscious unfocus，” a way of positively stimulating the default mode network， a collection of brain regions that spring into action when youre not focused on a specific task or thought.18 The default mode network may be quiet， but its hardly idle： It spends all day rummaging through our memories， collaging ideas together， and interpolating past， present and future into our sense of self and placement in time and space.19

If creativity is truly context-dependent， it makes sense that Pillay feels a sense of urgency for his work—perhaps no environment is quite so hostile20 to creative thinking as that of the typical modern white-collar worker. Most of us spend way too much time worrying about two things： How successful/unsuccessful we are， and how little were focusing on the task at hand. The former feeds the latter—an unfocused person is an unsuccessful one， we believe. Thus， we force ourselves into quiet areas， buy noisecanceling headphones， and berate21 ourselves for taking breaks.

What makes Pillays argument stand out is its healthy， forgiving realism： According to him， most people spend nearly half of their days in a state of“unfocus.” This doesnt make us slackers22—it makes us human. The quietly revolutionary idea behind psychological halloweenism is： What if we stopped judging ourselves for our mental down time， and instead started harnessing it？23 Putting this new spin on daydreaming means tackling two problems at once： Youre making yourself more creative， and youre giving yourself permission to do something youd otherwise feel guilty about. Imagining yourself in a new situation， or an entirely new identity， never felt so productive.

1. architect： 建筑師。

2. scuba diver： 戴水肺的潛水員。

3. medieval knight： 中世紀(jì)騎士。

4. psychological halloweenism： 根據(jù)文義，可以理解為“心理角色扮演”（halloween的意思是萬圣節(jié)前夜，當(dāng)晚有人們裝扮成各種角色的習(xí)俗）。

5. wear： 呈現(xiàn)（特定樣子）；psychiatrist：精神病學(xué)家，精神病醫(yī)生。

6. irony： 具有諷刺意味的事；obsession：癡迷；frame： 給……設(shè)框，框住。

7. 也就是說，我們大多數(shù)人把創(chuàng)造力和自我的概念混為一體：認(rèn)為我們要不就是“有創(chuàng)造力的”，要不就沒有，沒有什么中間區(qū)域可言。marry…to…：使緊密結(jié)合，把……混為一體。

8. right-brained： 右腦型的，即慣用右腦的，右腦比左腦發(fā)達(dá)的。

9. entrepreneur： 企業(yè)家；chunk： 相當(dāng)大的量；subvert： 顛覆，破壞。

10. defy： 違抗，挑釁；clichéd： 老生常談的，陳詞濫調(diào)的。

11. stereotype： 模式化（刻板）形象，固有成見。

12. eccentric： 古怪的，反常的；rigid：刻板的；control group： 實(shí)驗(yàn)對照組。

13. 與此同時，研究者發(fā)現(xiàn)，不同專業(yè)學(xué)生的創(chuàng)造力水平相差不大。實(shí)際上，扮演“古怪詩人”這一心理角色的物理專業(yè)的學(xué)生比藝術(shù)專業(yè)的學(xué)生提出的創(chuàng)意更多。persona：（偽裝的）外表，形象。

14. malleable： 有延展性的，可塑的；context： 背景，環(huán)境。

15. reinforce： 加強(qiáng)，強(qiáng)化；align…with…：使……一致。

16. costume： 此處指“裝扮”。

17. sibling： 兄弟姐妹；rehash： 重復(fù)談?wù)?；ad nauseam： 令人厭煩地。

18. 根據(jù)他的分析，心理角色扮演之所以起作用，是因?yàn)槠鋵?shí)質(zhì)上是一種“有意識的走神”行為，這種行為可以有效刺激大腦的默認(rèn)模式網(wǎng)絡(luò)，即當(dāng)你并未專注于某個具體的任務(wù)或想法時，大腦的一部分區(qū)域會突然活躍起來。default： 默認(rèn)值。

19. 默認(rèn)模式網(wǎng)絡(luò)也許悄然無聲，卻并不懶散懈?。核鼤ㄉ弦徽鞎r間在我們的記憶中翻找，試圖將零散的想法拼貼起來，將過去、當(dāng)下與未來融入自我的感官中，實(shí)現(xiàn)時間與空間的定位。idle： 懶惰的，閑散的；rummage： 翻找，亂翻；collage： 拼貼；interpolate： 插入，添加。

20. hostile： 懷有敵意的，不友善的。

21. berate： 訓(xùn)斥，嚴(yán)責(zé)。

22. slacker： 偷懶者。

23. down time： 停工期；harness：駕馭，利用。