Q.A student is trying to loosen a tight screw but has only a coin in hand, no screwdriver. Explain, using the idea of functional fixedness, how she could still solve this problem.
Functional fixedness is the tendency to fixate on an object's usual, intended function and fail to notice that it could serve a different purpose instead. A coin is ordinarily thought of purely as currency, which is exactly the kind of fixed mental association that could stop the student from seeing any other use for it.
To solve the problem, the student needs to overcome this fixedness by noticing a physical property of the coin that has nothing to do with its usual function as money: it has a flat, rigid edge of roughly the right thickness to fit into the straight slot on top of a flat-head screw. Once this property is noticed, the coin's edge can be inserted into the screw's slot and turned, exactly the way a screwdriver's blade would be used - the coin is not literally a screwdriver, but it can perform the same physical function in this situation. This is directly comparable to the chapter's own example of overcoming functional fixedness by using a hardbound book's flat spine to hammer in a nail instead of assuming a book can only ever be read.
The student overcomes functional fixedness by noticing that the coin's flat edge can physically perform a screwdriver's function, and uses it to turn the screw - the same kind of solution as using a book's spine as a hammer.
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