Optimal Levels of Writing Management: A Re-Analysis of Boice (1983)

A re-analysis of data originally presented in Boice (1983) confirmed that those who wrote daily in regularly scheduled writing sessions produced more writing and more new ideas than those who wrote "only when they felt like it." Writers who wrote to avoid punishment (donating money to a despised charity) wrote more and produced more ideas, but the re-analysis revealed that they were less efficient than other groups, producing fewer ideas per page written. Boice (1983) concluded that regularly scheduled writing sessions encouraged more writing and the emergence of more creative ideas than did "spontaneous" writing (writing when the writer "felt like it"). Boice’s data also appears to show, however, that the use of extreme reinforcers, in this case a punishment, was even more effective. In this note, I present a re-analysis of Boice’s data, and conclude that Boice’s conclusions on the effectiveness of regularly scheduled sessions are correct. I also conclude, however, that the use of a punishment to reinforce writing quantity did not result in increased efficiency in the production of creative ideas. Subjects were volunteers, college faculty with doctorates. None reported having a writer’s block, but all "complained of difficulties in completing written projects" (p. 538). All had authored or co-authored at least one academic publication in the last three years. Subjects met with the experimenter one time per week and kept track of the number of pages written and the number of creative or novel ideas that emerged that week. Subjects were told that "creative ideas" were those that were "useful and relevant to professional writing projects (and were ) novel and original to the writer" (p. 538). Subjects were asked only to list the first four ideas they had each writing day. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Those in the first group were asked to schedule five writing sessions per week. During the baseline phase of the study, they were asked on write "only when they felt like it" for ten days or until they had produced no writing for three consecutive writing days. After this, they entered a new phase in which they agreed to produce three pages per session, and a strong motivator was instituted: If subjects did not meet the goal on any day, they would have to donate $15 to a "despised organization." They stayed in this phase for 30 days. A second group did the same baseline condition as the first, scheduling five sessions per week but actually writing only when they felt like it for 15 scheduled days. After this time, for an additional 20 days, they were asked to write daily, whether they felt like writing or not, but no quota and no reinforcers were used. A third group agreed to do no writing for 50 days or ten weeks and also kept track of any new, creative ideas they had. For ease of exposition, I present Boice’s results in terms of four writing conditions. Conditions 2, 3 and 4 represent increasing amounts of management in writing. 1. No writing: the control group. 2. Spontaneous writing, writing when one "feels like it.": the baseline conditions for groups 1 and 2. 3. Regular writing: the second phase activity of group 2, asked to do regular writing without incentives. 4. Forced writing, those who had to send a donation to a despised organization if they did not meet their writing goals. This was the second phase activity of group 1.