A growing body of evidence suggests that reflecting on performance is an important source of individual learning. Given the importance of creativity in contemporary business settings, reflection has also been cast as a useful strategy to facilitate creative problem-solving. Challenging this idea, we conducted a series of lab experiments to examine the effects of reflection on creative problem-solving. Drawing from theory in cognitive psychology on knowledge structures, we argue that reflection may sometimes debilitate rather than improve creative problem-solving, due to the reinforcement of existing cognitive schemas and the resulting cognitive entrenchment. To test our theoretical arguments, we developed two alternative reflection strategies, imaginative reflection and vicarious elaboration. In Study 1 (N = 101), we observed a detrimental effect of task reflection on creative problem-solving, which was offset by having participants engage in imaginative reflection. In Study 2 (N = 191), vicarious elaboration, elaborating on another’s creative experiences instead of reflecting on one’s own creative experiences, was introduced as a second strategy to counter cognitive entrenchment. In Study 3 (N = 235), we combined the reflection strategies, demonstrating that imaginative thinking was more effective when focused on one’s own experiences rather than on others’ experiences (i.e., vicarious imaginative elaboration). Together, these findings increase our understanding of the effects of different reflection strategies, but also call for further research to address an intriguing observation: none of the reflection strategies led to better outcomes as compared to a control condition without reflection, suggesting that individual reflection might not help creative problem-solving at all.

越来越多的证据表明，反思表现是个人学习的重要来源。考虑到创造力在当代商业环境中的重要性，反思也已被视为一种有助于解决创造力问题的有用策略。对此想法提出质疑，我们进行了一系列实验室实验，以检验反思对解决创造性问题的影响。从认知心理学的知识结构理论出发，我们认为，由于现有认知模式的增强和由此产生的认知根深蒂固，反思有时可能会使人沮丧，而不是改善创造性的问题解决能力。为了检验我们的理论论证，我们开发了两种替代性的反思策略，即想象性反思和替代性阐述。在研究1（N= 101），我们观察到任务反思对创造性问题解决的有害影响，但可以通过让参与者进行富有想象力的反思来抵消。在研究2（N = 191）中，替代性的阐述是阐述他人的创造性经历，而不是反思自己的创造性经历，这是第二种应对认知根深蒂固的策略。在研究3（N= 235），我们结合了反思策略，证明了想象力思维在关注于自己的经历而不是他人的经历（即替代性的想象力阐述）时更为有效。总之，这些发现增加了我们对不同反射策略效果的理解，但也需要进一步研究以解决一个有趣的观察：与没有反射的对照条件相比，没有一种反射策略能够导致更好的结果，这表明个体反射可能根本无济于事。