When the word “creativity” is mentioned, many people think of artistic creativity. Artistic creativity, however, is only one of the ways in which a person can be creative.
Creative thinking is the ability to come up with new ideas, particularly ideas that are useful for activities such as
· solving problems,
· designing products,
· improving an old way of doing things,
· making decisions,
· exploring options and alternatives,
· generating plot developments,
· deriving new ways to use paint or clay to represent a concept or scene, or
· finding poetic inspiration.
A creative idea is one that is not only new and original, but also useful for solving a problem. Pat Stokes, in Creativity from constraints: The psychology of breakthrough (Springer, 2006), further suggests generative and influential:
“Generative means that the new thing leads to other ideas or things. (A solution suggests further developments or variations or facilitates solving the next problem.) Influential means that the new thing changes the way people look at, or listen to, think about, or do, things like it.”
According to Kenneth Heilman, creative people have the ability to “take a different direction from the prevailing modes of thought or expression.” (Creativity and the brain, Psychology Press, 2005.) In order to do this, creative people often see possibilities and connections where most people will not see anything, have a different way of looking things, and can combine elements (often from different fields) to form something new.
We don't know exactly how creativity works. What we do know is that we are all creative to some extent, and that the ability to think creatively is something that can be taught, practised, and improved. As with any gift or skill, some people will attain the level of genius while others will be mediocre, but we can all optimize our creative potential with the right environment and creative-thinking techniques.
The first person to realize that we can deliberately foster our creativity was Alex Osborn, whose concept of brainstorming is perhaps the best-known creativity technique. In Applied Imagination: Principles and procedures of creative problem-solving (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953), Osborn set out his belief that, with practice, we could all become more creative:
“Scientific tests for aptitudes have revealed the relative universality of creative potential. … An analysis of almost all the psychological tests ever made points to the conclusion that creative talent is normally distributed--that all of us possess this talent to a lesser or greater degree--and that our creative efficacy varies more in ratio to our output of mental energy that in ration to our inborn talent.”
Since then, creativity teachers have derived numerous techniques to help us foster our creative-thinking abilities.
Creativity has some links with intelligence—you would need a measure of intelligence to know enough about a field to develop something new. However, all moderately intelligent people have the ability to be creative, irrespective of the exact level of their intelligence as measured by an IQ test. (Heilman refers to several studies on intelligence and creativity.)
Creativity cannot be forced, but it can be encouraged. We don’t have to wait for inspiration to strike; we can create a climate that promotes creativity both by creating the right environment and by using techniques that have been specifically designed to allow creative thinking to bloom. An environment that fosters creativity and creative thinking comprise both physical and mental attributes. Setting aside time and minimizing interruptions is a good start.
The most important mental attitude for creativity is to believe that you can be creative. This is not a passive attitude, however. Instead of waiting for a creative idea to strike, the ideal is to aim for "creativity on demand," that is, creative ideas when you need them. How to do that is the subject of this blog, and of the many books on creative thinking. (See my post “The sceptic’s Tarot: Using the cards for problem solving and creative thinking” for some of these books.)
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