Embodying an avatar with a dissimilar appearance enhances insight problem solving

Research on construal level theory suggests that psychological distance enhances creativity, as people tend to be more creative when considering events or objects that are spatially or temporally distant. With immersive technologies, individuals can use different forms of digital representations (or avatars) for work or entertainment in immersive virtual reality (IVR). We hypothesized that embodying an avatar with a dissimilar appearance, compared to a similar one, would induce psychological distance and thus enhance creative thinking and insight problem solving. To test this hypothesis, participants wore an IVR headset and completed creativity and problem-solving tasks while embodying avatars of varying similarity to themselves. The results showed that participants who embodied a dissimilar avatar solved more insight problems than those with a similar avatar. Theoretically, our findings provide further evidence for construal level theory. Practically, our findings suggest immersive technology can be applied to enhance human performance in insight problem solving tasks.