• Explain common roadblocks to problem-solving
• Explain choice blindness

Barriers to Effective Problem-Solving

Even with good strategies, not all problems are solved easily. Sometimes the obstacle isn’t the problem itself—it’s the way we think about the problem. Psychologists have identified several mental habits that make it harder to generate creative or effective solutions.

Albert Einstein famously said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” This quote captures a common obstacle: getting “stuck” using an old solution that no longer works.

Imagine standing in a room with four doorways. The one you usually use is suddenly locked, but you keep tugging on it anyway—even though the other three doors are wide open. The solution is obvious from the outside, but in the moment, familiarity can trap us.

mental set

A mental set is where you persist in approaching a problem in a way that has worked in the past but is clearly not working now.

Mental sets can be helpful because familiar solutions save time. But they can also block creativity and keep you from seeing alternatives. Students often experience this while studying: the strategy that worked well in high school (like rereading notes) may fail in college, yet they keep using it because it feels familiar.

Functional Fixedness

functional fixedness

Functional fixedness is a type of mental set where you cannot perceive an object being used for something other than what it was designed for.

For example:

• You need to prop open a door but don’t think to use your backpack as a doorstop.
• You search for scissors even though your keys could cut the tape.
• You overlook using a mug as a pencil holder because you think of it only as something to drink from.

Functional fixedness limits creativity by narrowing how you interpret the tools around you. Overcoming it often requires reframing objects in terms of their features (heavy, sharp, absorbent) rather than their typical uses.

Functional Fixedness and Apollo 13

During the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, NASA engineers at Mission Control had to overcome functional fixedness to save the lives of the astronauts aboard the spacecraft. An explosion in a module of the spacecraft damaged multiple systems. The astronauts were in danger of being poisoned by rising levels of carbon dioxide because of problems with the carbon dioxide filters. The engineers found a way for the astronauts to use spare plastic bags, tape, and air hoses to create a makeshift air filter, which saved the lives of the astronauts.

Check out this Apollo 13 scene where the group of NASA engineers are given the task of overcoming functional fixedness. This clip explains how it really happened.

Researchers have investigated whether functional fixedness is affected by culture. In one experiment, individuals from the Shuar group in Ecuador were asked to use an object for a purpose other than that for which the object was originally intended.

For example, the participants were told a story about a bear and a rabbit that were separated by a river and asked to select among various objects, including a spoon, a cup, erasers, and so on, to help the animals. The spoon was the only object long enough to span the imaginary river, but if the spoon was presented in a way that reflected its normal usage, it took participants longer to choose the spoon to solve the problem. (German & Barrett, 2005).

The researchers wanted to know if exposure to highly specialized tools, as occurs with individuals in industrialized nations, affects their ability to transcend functional fixedness. It was determined that functional fixedness is experienced in both industrialized and nonindustrialized cultures (German & Barrett, 2005).