It may be better to give than to receive — but there's nothing worse than ripping off colorful wrapping paper to reveal some gym socks, the oh-so-obviously regifted scented candles or a CD box set of any kind.
But work by William Maddux of INSEAD (a business school) and Adam Galinsky of Northwestern University suggests that exile itself makes people creative.They compared MBA students who had lived abroad with otherwise similar students who had not, using an experiment in which each was given a candle, a box of matches and a box of drawing pins.
In one classic experiment, the German psychologist Karl Duncker presented people with a candle, a box of thumbtacks and the assignment of attaching the candle to a wall.
They were shown a picture of several objects – a candle, a box of nails and pack of matches – placed on a table next to a wall.
He describes a puzzle problem involving a candle, a box of tacks and a book of matches.
Sure enough, the female rats are more sexually aggressive than the males, and the porn-watching women as indiscriminately aroused as the men in the trials, right down to being turned on by copulating bonobos – no candles or box of Milk Tray required.
The solution requires that the person put the candle in the box of tacks and tack the box to the wall, a creative repurposing of the object.
In the eight days since the shooting, a steady stream of Charleston residents have gathered outside Emanuel AME on Calhoun Street – named for John C. Calhoun, America's seventh vice president and a leading defender of slavery -- to pray, sing gospel songs and drop off small offerings, including flowers, balloons, wooden crosses, candles, alabaster boxes and seashells.
Emergency response Within 24 hours of the beginning of the flood emergency, UNICEF rushed essential supplies to affected areas, including water containers, plastic mats, buckets, shovels, candles, match boxes, mosquito coils, candles and other items.
