Board Games Enhance Creativity : Evidence from Two Studies

Creativity is a crucial skill in the 21st century. Finding ways to develop and improve it is therefore a major challenge. Games are powerful educational tools, and several early studies have shown the potential of video games and role-playing games to develop creativity. However, the question of the potential of board games is still open. The aim of this paper was therefore to explore this question, through two studies. Using a cross-sectional study (N = 284), the first study showed that the frequency of playing board games was positively correlated with several components of creative potential: divergent thinking, openness to experiences, creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity. Using the experimental method (N = 239), the second study demonstrated that playing creative games - requiring the generation of creative ideas - had a beneficial effect on participants' originality, compared to playing non-creative games and a control condition. This result was observed independently of the participants' baseline creative potential, derived using latent profile analysis. This beneficial effect, obtained after 30 minutes of play, could be used to temporarily improve creative performance, in education or in business.