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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 you’re an architect1. Same question.
Now， imagine you’re 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 it’s 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： We’re either“creative” people or we aren’t， without much of a middle ground.7 I’m 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： I’m 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 one’s 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
Pillay’s work takes this a step further： He argues that identifying yourself with creativity is less powerful than the creative act of imagining you’re 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 you’re not focused on a specific task or thought.18 The default mode network may be quiet， but it’s 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 we’re 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 Pillay’s 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 doesn’t 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： You’re making yourself more creative， and you’re giving yourself permission to do something you’d otherwise feel guilty about. Imagining yourself in a new situation， or an entirely new identity， never felt so productive. 1. architect： 建筑师。
2. scuba diver： 戴水肺的潜水员。
3. medieval knight： 中世紀骑士。
4. psychological halloweenism： 根据文义，可以理解为“心理角色扮演”（halloween的意思是万圣节前夜，当晚有人们装扮成各种角色的习俗）。
5. wear： 呈现（特定样子）；psychiatrist：精神病学家，精神病医生。
6. irony： 具有讽刺意味的事；obsession：痴迷；frame： 给……设框，框住。
7. 也就是说，我们大多数人把创造力和自我的概念混为一体：认为我们要不就是“有创造力的”，要不就没有，没有什么中间区域可言。marry…to…：使紧密结合，把……混为一体。
8. right-brained： 右脑型的，即惯用右脑的，右脑比左脑发达的。
9. entrepreneur： 企业家；chunk： 相当大的量；subvert： 颠覆，破坏。
10. defy： 违抗，挑衅；clichéd： 老生常谈的，陈词滥调的。
11. stereotype： 模式化（刻板）形象，固有成见。
12. eccentric： 古怪的，反常的；rigid：刻板的；control group： 实验对照组。
13. 与此同时，研究者发现，不同专业学生的创造力水平相差不大。实际上，扮演“古怪诗人”这一心理角色的物理专业的学生比艺术专业的学生提出的创意更多。persona：（伪装的）外表，形象。
14. malleable： 有延展性的，可塑的；context： 背景，环境。
15. reinforce： 加强，强化；align…with…：使……一致。
16. costume： 此处指“装扮”。
17. sibling： 兄弟姐妹；rehash： 重复谈论；ad nauseam： 令人厌烦地。
18. 根据他的分析，心理角色扮演之所以起作用，是因为其实质上是一种“有意识的走神”行为，这种行为可以有效刺激大脑的默认模式网络，即当你并未专注于某个具体的任务或想法时，大脑的一部分区域会突然活跃起来。default： 默认值。
19. 默认模式网络也许悄然无声，却并不懒散懈怠：它会花上一整天时间在我们的记忆中翻找，试图将零散的想法拼贴起来，将过去、当下与未来融入自我的感官中，实现时间与空间的定位。idle： 懒惰的，闲散的；rummage： 翻找，乱翻；collage： 拼贴；interpolate： 插入，添加。
20. hostile： 怀有敌意的，不友善的。
21. berate： 训斥，严责。
22. slacker： 偷懒者。
23. down time： 停工期；harness：驾驭，利用。