The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.
Nikola Tesla

A study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin proposes that individuals who spend time alone are perceived  as having higher creative potential. This research was carried out by Dr. Devon Proudfoot and Dr. Sean Fath, assistant professors at Cornell University. 

In a competitive job market, creativity can be an invaluable asset. Creative thinking has consistently been cited as one of the most in-demand skills in the workplace. 

However, when making a first impression, such as during a job interview, it can be challenging to let your creative skills shine through. 

This led Drs. Proudfoot and Fath to ask how a person can appear to have high creative potential without actually generating creative ideas on the spot. They hypothesized that individuals may be judged as having higher creative potential when they spend time alone.

For their first experiment, the researchers tested the hypothesis that when individuals appear socially independent, others view them as having more creative potential. They presented participants with biographical information about a target named Bryan Rutledge, including his education background and work experience. 

Next, participants were randomly divided into two conditions. In the first condition, participants read that at work, Bryan usually ate his lunch alone. In the other condition, they read that Bryan usually ate lunch with his coworkers. Participants in each condition were shown photos depicting Bryan alone or with coworkers.  

As expected, when Bryan was portrayed as someone who eats alone, participants believed he was more likely to come up with creative ideas.

In the following experiment, the researchers were curious whether a job applicant’s preference for working alone would also signal creative potential. 

A new group of participants were presented with biographical information about a target named Bryan Evans. Participants were then assigned to read one of two versions of the interview excerpt, where Bryan described what he liked to do for fun.  

In the alone condition, participants read that Bryan said, “My ideal Sunday morning is to get up at the crack of dawn so I can hit the golf course early and have it all to myself before anyone else shows up.”

In the other condition, participants read that Bryan said, “My ideal Sunday morning is to get up at the crack of dawn so my buddies and I can hit the golf course early and have it to ourselves before anyone else shows up.”

Next, participants read that Bryan was hired by a consulting firm and it was his job to generate ideas for clients. The participants were asked a series of questions to assess how creative and practical they thought his ideas would be. 

Consistent with the previous experiment, the results revealed that when participants read that Bryan enjoyed being alone, they judged him as more likely to come up with creative ideas on the job. 

However, there wasn’t a significant effect regarding the perception of how practical Bryan’s ideas would be. This suggests that whether an individual enjoys being alone or with others affects judgements about creative ideas, rather than the overall generation of ideas. 

In their final experiment, the researchers tested whether individuals who act alone are thought of as more creative because people expect them to have a contrarian personality and motivation to display non-normative behavior.

In this experiment, participants were randomly assigned to read an article about one of four musical artists. A pretest revealed that two of the artists, Kanye West and Lady Gaga were deemed high in nonconformity. The other two artists, Taylor Swift and John Legend, were deemed low in nonconformity.

After being assigned an artist, participants either read that the artist wrote the songs on their latest album while they were spending a lot of time alone, or spending time with others. Next, participants were asked how creative they thought their assigned artists’ next album would be. 

The results showed that when the artists described themselves as spending time alone while writing their songs, they were seen as having greater creative potential. This was regardless of whether they were known to be high or low in nonconformity at a baseline.

In general, the researchers found that when individuals spend time alone, others deem them as having higher creative potential. These results are consistent regardless of whether the individual typically displays nonconforming behavior. Thus, a person may appear more creative by letting others know that they spend a lot of time alone.