Target-the-Two: A lab-in-the-field experiment on routinization

The paper investigates the determinants of routinization and creativity by means of a labin-the-field experiment run at the 20th edition of a mass gathering festival in Italy (“La Notte della Taranta”). In the experiment, subjects play repeatedly the puzzle version of Target-The-Two game (32 hands). We find that when we focus on expert subjects there is no difference in behavior between creative and routinized individuals. When we consider inexpert subjects, instead, routinized individuals perform better, due to the fact that they are faster. However, routinization, although increasing the likelihood to complete all the 32 hands of the game, it increases the number of moves needed to complete them, which ultimately decreases the likelihood to win the game.