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Einstellung effect

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Development of a mechanized state of mind

This article relies excessively on references to primary sources . Please improve this article by adding secondary or tertiary sources.<br>Find sources: "Einstellung effect" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Einstellung (German pronunciation: [ˈaɪ̯nˌʃtɛlʊŋ] ⓘ; German: Einstellungseffekt[1]) is the development of a mechanized state of mind. Often called a problem solving set, Einstellung refers to a person's predisposition to solve a given problem in a specific manner even though better or more appropriate methods of solving the problem exist.

The Einstellung effect is the negative effect of previous experience when solving new problems. The Einstellung effect has been tested experimentally in many different contexts.

The example which led to the coining of the term by Abraham S. Luchins and Edith Hirsch Luchins[citation needed] is the Luchins water jar experiment, in which subjects were asked to solve a series of water jar problems. After solving many problems which had the same solution, subjects applied the same solution to later problems even though a simpler solution existed (Luchins, 1942).[2] Other experiments on the Einstellung effect can be found in The Effect of Einstellung on Compositional Processes[3] and Rigidity of Behavior, A Variational Approach to the Effect of Einstellung.[4]

Background<br>[edit]

Einstellung literally means "setting" or "installation" as well as a person's "attitude" in German. Related to Einstellung is what is referred to as an Aufgabe ("task" in German). The Aufgabe is the situation which could potentially invoke the Einstellung effect. It is a task which creates a tendency to execute a previously applicable behavior. In the Luchins and Luchins experiment a water jar problem served as the Aufgabe, or task.

The Einstellung effect occurs when a person is presented with a problem or situation that is similar to problems they have worked through in the past. If the solution (or appropriate behavior) to the problem/situation has been the same in each past experience, the person will likely provide that same response, without giving the problem too much thought, even though a more appropriate response might be available. Essentially, the Einstellung effect is one of the human brain's ways of finding an appropriate solution/behavior as efficiently as possible. The detail is that though finding the solution is efficient, the solution itself is not or might not be. (This is consistent with the famous remark of Blaise Pascal: "I would have written a shorter letter, but I didn't have the time.")

Another phenomenon similar to Einstellung is functional fixedness (Duncker 1945).[5] Functional fixedness is an impaired ability to discover a new use for an object, owing to the subject's previous use of the object in a functionally dissimilar context. It can also be deemed a cognitive bias that limits a person to using an object only in the way it is traditionally used. Duncker also pointed out that the phenomenon occurs not only with physical objects, but also with mental objects or concepts (a point which lends itself nicely to the phenomenon of Einstellung effect).

Luchins and Luchins water jar experiment<br>[edit]

An example water jar puzzle: a jug filled with 8 units of water, and two empty jugs of sizes 5 and 3. The solver must pour the water in such a way that the first and second jugs end up containing 4 units, and the third is empty.<br>The water jar test, first described in Abraham S. Luchins's 1942 classic experiment,[2] is a commonly cited example of an Einstellung situation. The experiment's participants were given the following problem: there are 3 water jars, each with the capacity to hold a different, fixed amount of water; the subject must figure out how to measure a certain amount of water using these jars. It was found that subjects used methods that they had used previously to find the solution even though there were quicker and more efficient methods available. The experiment shines light on how mental sets can hinder the solving of novel problems.

In the Luchins' experiment, subjects were divided into two groups. The experimental group was given five practice problems, followed by four critical test problems. The control group did not have the five practice problems. All of the practice problems and some of the critical problems had only one solution, which was "B minus A minus 2⋅C." For example, one is given jar A capable of holding 21 units of water, B capable of holding 127, and C capable of holding 3. If an amount of 100 units must be measured out, the solution is...