dissertation tip #4

Our first research design class was on "generating research hypotheses". This is from the reading (on heuristics for doing so):

Heuristic G22 involves using some physiological prod to jolt one's thinking out of the usual ruts. Chemical stimulants might be legal and conventional like caffeine, or illegal and stigmatized like LSD. If one is to use chemicals as a jolt to enhance hypothesis generating, one should lower one's base level of the substance so that when needed it will make a difference (e.g. one should forego drinking coffee until one needs it to keep alert through an all-nighter). Instead of chemical doses, one can use behavioral prods like hyperventilation or jogger's high, or purportedly mind-altering meditation tricks, or musical backgrounds, or massed practice to extinguish responses normally prepotent in the habit-family hierarchy. Low-inhibition states such as daydreams or even night dreams may allow elusive insights to surface, as when Kekule formulated the hexagonal-ring model of the benzene molecule after dreaming of a serpent biting its own tail.

McGuire WJ (1997), Creative Hypothesis Generating in Psychology: Some Useful Heuristics, Annu. Rev Psychol, 48:1-30.