Creative
Thinking
The concept, scope and theory of creative thinking.
* Creative personality.
Etimology
• Creare (to create); ‘krainein (to fulfill).
• 16, 17 & 18 century (sciences, art, literature,
poem, novel etc.).
• 19th century - Creatum/Create (to produce/to
make) – (the finished product) vs (an ongoing
process).
Creativity
Create > creativity; creative thinking
Creative thinking is “the ability to bring something
of new existence.” (Webster’s Dictionary 1976)
“Creativity is the making of new and rearranging
of the old.” (Mike Vance, 1995)
“Being creative is seeing the same thing as
everybody else but thinking of something
different.” (Wycoff, 1995)
“Something or some process that is original, novel,
newly thought of, and in some cases as being
useful.” (Amabile, 1999)
“Looking at what everybody else is looking but thinking of what nobody else
has thought”
(A.S Goyrgy)
“Bringing together ideas that were previously unrelated”
“The process of producing something is both original & worthwhile”
(Sternberg, 1996)
“Bringing together ideas that were previously unrelated”
David Perkins (1996)
“An idea is creative if that person (the creator) could not have had that idea
before.”
Margaret Boden (1990)
“Creativity is the ability to produce work that is novel (original, unexpected),
high in quality and appropriate (Lubart, 1994; Osche 1990; Sternberg
1999)
“Creativity is extra/ordinary, original and fitting, full-filling, in(ter)ventive,
co-coperative, un/conscious, fe/male, re…creation.” (Rob Pope, 2005)
CREATIVE THINKING
CRITICAL THINKING
ORDINARY THINKING
Creativity approaches
• Mystical approaches
• Pragmatic approaches
• Psychodynamic approaches
• Psychometric approaches
• Cognitive approaches
• Social-personality approaches
• Confluence approaches
(Sternberg & Lubart, 1999)
Mystical approaches
• Associate to mystical belief and
spirituality; e.g. ‘Daemon’ inside the
writer’s pen.
• Creative person = empty vessel (a
divine would fill with inspiration).
• Without ‘scientific spirit’.
Pragmatic approaches
• Lacking of (or no) scientific study
(psychological theory) while focus on
the commercial success.
• e.g. Edward de Bono who concern on
the practice, not the theory, Osborn
(brainstorming), von Oech (role
adopting) etc.
Edward de Bono (1)
• Popular with ideas and concepts of
lateral thinking (vs. vertical thinking),
PMI, PO (provocative operation =
hypothesis, suppose, possible &
poetry), Six Hats (green hat >
creative).
• de Bono: Do not ever say TINA
(there is no alternatives).
Edward de Bono (2)
• Books:
– I am Right You Are Wrong (1990).
– Handbook for the Positive Revolution
(1991).
– Six Action Shoes (1992).
– Serious Creativity (1992).
– Sur/petition (1992) etc.
Psychodynamic
approaches
• Creativity arises from the tension
between conscious reality and
unconscious drives.
• However it is still lacking of
scientific spirit, more rely on case
study.
Psychometric
approaches
• Unusual Uses Test, Torrance Tests
of Creative Thinking etc.
Cognitive approaches
Social-personality
approaches
Confluence approaches
Creativity exercises
• List 20 usages of:
• paper clip
• ball-pen.
• Anagram games.
Creativity & IQ
• Many creative persons have average
IQs; no correlation between
‘intelligence’ and ‘creativity’.
Creativity & academic
achievement (1)
• Extensive scientific studies since
1960s.
• Getzel & Jackson (1958, 1962): High
creative + high IQ = ‘overachieve’ for
their intelligence.
• Influences of gender, SES, nature of
creativity & academic avhievement,
intelligence.
Creativity & academic
achievement (2)
• Cicirelli (1965): The relationship
between creativity and academic
achievement was LOW.
Creativity & families (1)
• Major scope of variables (time-base
development): Family tree/genetic, family
history (parental loss, family crises etc.)
and family climate (parenting style etc.).
• No clear evident on heritability of
creativity.
• Writers, in particular, sought less social
companionship as children.
Creativity & families (2)
• Family history findings: Father loss,
firstborn, humor and play at home etc.
• Family climate findings: ‘Unisex’ role,
distressful family, independence from
parent (especially mother) etc.
• Csikszentmihalyi: Even 20% females & 30%
males of subjects loss father, families
supported & nurtured children’s selfconfidence. Families families exposed them
to a stimulating & rich environment.
TYPES of
CREATIVITY
H – Creativiti (C)
(20 – 40 years old)
S – Creativity (c)
Boden (1998)
•
•
•
•
BIG C
Sublime creativity
Kreativiti agung
Kreativiti primer
• Small c
• Everyday
creativity
• Minor creativity
FUNCTION of CREATIVITY
IDEA
DISCOVERY
INNOVATION
DECISION MAKING
INVENTION
PROBLEM SOLVING
Pseudo creativity
SOURCES of CREATIVITY
•
•
•
•
•
•
GOD
Knowledge
Experiences & skills
Readings
Environment
Creative figures
3
2
1
Csikszentmihalyi: What we call
creativity is constructed
through and interaction
between producers and
audiences. Creativity is not the
product of single individuals,
but of social systems making
judgements about individuals’
product.
The word success is an ambiguous word. Success with respect to
the outside? Or success with respect to oneself? And if it is a
success with respect to the outside, then how do you evaluate it?
Very often outside success is irrelevant, wrong, and misplaced. So
how can one talk about it? Externally, you may think I am
successful because people write about some aspects of my work.
But that is an external judgment. And I have no idea as to how to
value that judgment.
Success is not one of my motives. Because success stands in
contrast to failure. But not worthwhile effort in one’s life is either a
success or a failure. What do you mean by success? You take a
problem and you want to solve it. Well, if you solve it, in a limited
sense it is a success. But it may be a trivial problem. So a
judgment about success is not something about which I’ve ever
been serious about in any sense whatever.”
(Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the Nobel laureate physicist; American;
he wrote The Mathematically Theory of Black Holes (1983),
Creative personality (1)
• ‘Minnesota Multiphasic Personality’ by
Frank Barron (1969).
• ‘The Psychoticism Scale of the
Eysenck Personality Questionnaire’
by Eysenck (1995).
• Robert Alan Black and 32 Traits of
Creative People.
Creative personality (2)
• John Bardeen.
• Bill Gates.
• etc.