Scribd
Upload
3 views

creativity

Creativity is the ability to generate original ideas and solutions, characterized by traits like imagination and expressiveness. The creative process involves four stages: preparation, incubation, inspiration, and verification, and is influenced by factors such as experience, fearlessness, desire, environment, and time. Understanding and enhancing creativity can lead to personal and professional growth, allowing for innovative problem-solving and broader perspectives.

Uploaded by

Kamal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
3 views

creativity

Creativity is the ability to generate original ideas and solutions, characterized by traits like imagination and expressiveness. The creative process involves four stages: preparation, incubation, inspiration, and verification, and is influenced by factors such as experience, fearlessness, desire, environment, and time. Understanding and enhancing creativity can lead to personal and professional growth, allowing for innovative problem-solving and broader perspectives.

Uploaded by

Kamal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 4

Creativity

Creativity is the ability to produce or develop original work, ideas, or solutions


to problems. It's often characterized by traits like imagination, expressiveness,
and originality.
"Creativity" means the ability to produce unusual, high quality solutions when
solving problems (Eysenck, 1991). Creative solutions to problems are
innovative and useful.
Creative thinking involves imagining familiar things in a new light, digging
below the surface to find previously undetected patterns, and finding
connections among unrelated phenomena.-ROGER VON OECH
The creative thinker, whether an artist, a scientist or an inventor, is always
trying to achieve something new. Creative thinking is similar to insight, and it
seems likely that the ideas rise to consciousness after much unconscious
rearrangement of symbols.
Creativity can be defined as a special case of problem-solving. What makes it
special may be the openmindedness of the problem, the originality of the
solution, or the nature of the process by which solution is achieved. Problems
relevant to creativity include instances of scientific innovation and artistic or
literary production. With respect to originality, it is generally agreed that a
creative response is not only novel but also effective and appropriate:
Meltzman (1960), in fact, defined creativity as 'originality evaluated'
Newell, Shaw and Simon (1963) have suggested four criteria for creativity. One
ormore of these criteria must be satisfied for an answer to be considered
creative:
●It has novelty and usefulness, either for the individual or the society
● It demands that we reject ideas we had previously accepted
● It results from intense motivation and persistence.
● It comes from clarifying a problem that was originally vague
Stages
According to GrahamWalls (1926), there are four main stages in
creativity:
Preparation:The person in this stage tries to understand the problem. As
Einstein hadsaid, “the formulation of a problem is often more essential than its
solution”. Thus, focusneeds to be more on knowing about the problem in
detail. Mackworth (1965) viewsthat problem finding is more important than
problem solving. It is crucial to discover theright problem that needs to be
solved. For this, one needs to collect all the informationabout the problem that
will help identify the problem, analyze it and understand it.Further, it involves
setting the goal and generating ideas towards the solution of theproblem.

Incubation: This is the time out phase where the individual does not engage
in anyactivity. At least there is no overt activity, but the processing of all the
informationgathered during the preparation stage goes on in this stage. The
person does not consciously or actively think about the problem, but the
creative processes carry onwithin the individual at an unconscious level.

Inspiration: After the incubation stage, the person suddenly gets an insight
about thesolution of the problem. In other words, it results in an ‘Aha’
experience. A new idea ornew possibilities emerge and the individual is more
active and conscious in this stage.She/he may also reformulate the problem
based on the illumination or inspiration obtainedin this stage. It may be noted
that this ‘eureka’ moment involves a lot of thinking andeffort in the
preparation stage.

Verification: The person then tries to evaluate and verify the ideas and
solutions in thisstage. It may result in some modifications of the solution. In
some cases, the personmay also need to go back to the first stage to gather or
generate more informationabout the problem, thus more ‘preparation’ is
required.
The process is cyclical. However, sometimes, if the person has good knowledge
of theproblem area, the stages may appear in a different order, directly
proceeding to thestage of incubation or inspiration or even to the verification
stage.
Aspects of Creativity
According to Guilford (1950),
Creativity involves divergent thinking in contrast to convergent thinking. The
latterrefers to thinking in conventional set pattern whereas divergent thinking
refers to thinkingout of the box. Divergent thinking is having divergent ideas
and possibilities.

It consists of fourprocesses/aspects such as:


● Fluency: refers to how rapidly the person comes up with ideas. It can be
inrespect of words, ideas, expression or associations. For example, write
wordscontaining a specified letter like p, ‘pot’, ‘hop’, ‘option’ etc. (word
fluency); tellthe fluids that will burn (ideational fluency); and write words
similar in meaning(associational fluency).
● Flexibility: refers to the ability to produce a large variety of ideas such as
thinkingof varied uses of a particular object, e.g., list the different ways of
using a rope ora newspaper. It also includes activities to make objects, e.g.,
drawing specifiedobjects using a set of given figures.
● Originality: refers to the uniqueness or novelty of ideas. It is the ability to
produceideas that are unusual, statistically infrequent and not obvious.
● Elaboration: involves the ability to develop and describe an idea, such
as,consequences of a hypothetical event, e.g., what would happen if no sleep
isrequired?

Factors affecting creativity


• Experiences: Experiences are a key player in creative thinking, the more
you experience more influenced you get. These experiences define your ideas
and creativity which are presented through your work.

• Fearlessness: Fearlessness is a major factor having impact on one's


creativity. A person who thinks that he is not creative can never be. Having
doubts is ok, but being worried about the success of an idea clearly shows that
you lack faith in your ideology. Experts say 'Be fearless with your creativity and
you'll open more doors for new ideas.'
• Desire: Desire is factor of creativity which is often overlooked but it is as
vital as any other criterion for growing as a creative individual. Science bluntly
states that, if you simply don't want to change things (or solve problems or
inspire others or do new things) then you won't.

• Atmosphere and Environment: Yes! It all about the world around us.
Atmosphere and environment both go hand in hand to influence an
individual's creativity levels. 'Environmental Factors Affecting Creativity and
Innovation' says: Although innovation and creativity can emerge in a variety of
settings and situations, some environments are more conducive to the creative
process. In one large study, it was found that having a vision, being task-
oriented, and engaging in external communication had a strong relationship to
creativity and innovation.

• Space and Time: Productivity may increase under pressure but creativity
has no positive influence if the undisturbed space and right amount of time is
not provided. John Cleese's talk on creativity states: That having a start and
end time to keep your creative space open is essential. Without a dedicated
time block, it is easy to leave a creativemindset to focus on trivial matters that
are easier to deal with than to take the time to do things that are important. It
also takes time to get into your creative mode. He says that you must realize
that it will take time to achieve something truly original and creative. There is a
sense of discomfort.

Conclusion
Creativity is the ability of a person to generate new ideas or solve
problems in new and unique ways. Understanding the psychology of
creativity and using techniques to enhance creative thinking can lead
to personal and professional growth. Creativity can help us view and
solve problems in a more open and innovative way. It can also help
us overcome prejudices and broaden our perspectives. Creativity is a
crucial part of human behaviour and a skill that sets humans apart
from other species.
++++

You might also like