Individuals trying to solve problems that require more creative or out-of-the-box-type thinking may indeed benefit from a less focused cognitive state. Research has shown that when people are asked to solve insight problems—problems that require an “aha!” moment of creativity—they perform better during their non-optimal time of day than their optimal time of day. A person’s optimal time of day is generally when they feel their best cognitively; they are able to concentrate much more easily and really focus in on a task. For those who consider themselves night owls, their optimal time of day is in the evening; for morning larks, it is in the morning.

On the other hand, during a non-optimal time of day (morning for the night owls and evening for the morning larks), people are much less focused and cannot concentrate on one thing as easily. This state of mind leads people to be more susceptible to think about other, seemingly unrelated, information (e.g., things they experienced earlier, their to-do list). This additional information floating around in your mind during your non-optimal time of day then ultimately helps you reach that creative “aha!” moment. So it isn’t really being tired per se that leads to more creative solutions, but having a less focused mind does.

Mareike Wieth is a professor of psychological science at Albion College.

There is still a lot we do not know about how intuitive cognitions arise and the extent to which they can change over time.

The evidence from studies in cognitive science seems to indicate that intuitive cognitions can change over time, but they are highly resistant to change, and the factors leading to change are not clearly identified. It seems that, over time, individuals who have developed very specialized knowledge can actively suppress their initial gut feelings.

There also seems to be evidence for an internal cognitive “reward” system when operating on intuitive cognitions that lead to positive outcomes within the context of affinity groups. So, if a person is among people they highly respect or whose views are highly valued, intuitive cognitions will tend to conform to views or outcomes that are affirmed by that affinity group.

David Haury is a professor of science education at The Ohio State University.

The way we feel toward social issues and various groups depends upon a variety of factors, only one of which is the context in which we’re asked about those attitudes. The data we collected demonstrated that participants from dozens of countries with various religious and political backgrounds expressed more politically conservative attitudes and more negative attitudes toward non-Christian groups when they were asked near a church than when they were asked near a civic building. The difference between contexts was small, but significant.

Environmental cues are likely to have the most influence in situations where attitudes are ambiguous or are being newly formed. For example, most people enter a polling place with a firm decision for whom they wish to cast their vote for president. Many ballots, however, ask citizens to vote on a variety of issues at once, many of which they may be unfamiliar with, or may have weak attitudes about. The context in which those votes are cast is most likely to have an influence on these types of issues.

Jordan LaBouff is a CLAS-Honors Preceptor of Psychology at the University of Maine.

In a word, no. The difficulty people have predicting how they will behave in embarrassing situations is that people simply don’t mentally represent the power of emotions to shape their behavior. This applies both to the past and the future.

For the past, our difficulty empathizing with the power of embarrassment contributes to regret because we don’t understand, retrospectively, why we “chickened out.” For the future, our difficulty empathizing with the power of embarrassment causes us to enter into situations we’d rather not (e.g., agreeing to sing karaoke and then dreading the event) and causes us to change our minds (chicken out) at the last minute—setting us up for future regret when we can no longer understand why we failed to act.

Leaf Van Boven is a professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the Emotion, Judgment, Decision, and Intuition lab at the University of Colorado Boulder.