The study asked college students to write a short essay on the topic: Imagine school is cancelled for today. What would you do, think, and feel?The results?Konnikova reports, “All students answered the same question. But for one group, a single sentence was added to the instruction: You are seven years old… The average [creativity test] performance was about as expected—with one major exception.“Those participants who were in the seven-year-old condition exhibited significantly higher levels of originality in thought. Both their verbal and figural responses left their more adult-minded counterparts in the dust.”From The Big Lesson of a Little Prince: (Re)capture the Creativity of Childhood, By Maria Konnikova.

I wonder what it is about being seven. No pressure to think about responsibility?