Mental Set

A common barrier to problem solving is mental set. This is when people are persistent in using problem-solving strategies that have worked well in the past, but currently, don't work so well. This was very common in middle school, I recall. I noticed many times students misbehaving and being very ill mannered and inconsiderate. Teachers that I had would use the same punishment on all of the students at different times. While the punishment (loss of recess or detention for example) may have worked the first few times, or for certain students, it did not work all of the time, yet the teachers continued to issue these punishments assuming that they would work because the worked the first time. This definitely became a barrier for the problem solving because in the end, nothing got fixed.