Creativity

Psychology

2022

We explain what creativity is and what is the importance of creative thinking. Characteristics and examples of creativity.

Works of art are born from pure creative ability.

What is creativity?

Creativity is the ability or ability of human being to invent or create things, which can be physical objects, ideas, representations or simply fantasies. It is about the possibility of generating the new: new concepts, new ideas or new associations between them, which usually leads to new solutions to problems. problems.

The creative thinking is highly valued in our societies, in which innovation and change play an important role. It involves the memory, intelligence, imagination and other processes complex mindsets that lead to thought original.

Creativity is typical of human cognition, and is what sets it apart from forms of artificial intelligence. It is present to varying degrees in numerous forms of personality (called creative personality) and is found in a pure and free state during childhood, the best example of which is the games of the imagination. Writers, artists, architects, scientists and inventors are cultivators of the creative aspect of their personality.

Finally, creativity is common to all human beings (and even some animal species) but it can be enhanced or not, depending on the habits and preferences of each individual. The most creative will be those who can come up with a novel way of solving a problem, or a novel representation of it.

Characteristics of creativity

Creativity is characterized by some or more of the following elements:

  • Spontaneity.The appearance of creativity is usually spontaneous, that is, unplanned, and leads to what many call “inspiration”, that is, a state of consciousness particularly inclined towards creation.
  • Freedom. Creative thinking does not usually play by the rules, rather it contradicts them and places itself in new, different, free perspectives.
  • Sensitivity. More than with intelligence or knowledge, creativity has to do with the ability to take on new perspectives, which is often linked to sensitivity and the ability to play (playful thinking).
  • Excitability. Creativity is stimulated through the consumption of complex and novel cultural objects: art, literature, games, activities that allow freer exploration of subjectivity and original thought.

Why is creativity important?

Creativity has played a vital role in the evolution of the human species, since it has allowed it to face various problems throughout its history and develop innovative, original tools and solutions for each one. In fact, this talent probably signified the superiority of the Homo sapiens compared to other contemporary hominids, which allowed it to reproduce more and dominate the entire world.

In human daily life, creativity is a highly valued talent. Scientific, inventive, artistic or architectural endeavors depend largely on this talent, not to mention the development of new materials, new technologies or new philosophies of thought, whose impact on civilization is often more or less revolutionary.

examples of creativity

Creativity is found in our daily lives in abundance. The following are just a few examples of this:

  • The innovation scientific and technological. What better example of human creativity than the dizzying advance of technology of which we are witnesses? Most of the things we take for granted today were unthinkable two decades ago, and yet someone put all of his creativity into finding a way to do it.
  • The artworks. Paint, sculpture, literature, music and all artistic expressions are born from pure creative ability, as they have no practical purpose, no function, but offer new and unique perspectives on life.
  • The advertising. Although there are general tendencies and clichés, the advertising it is a good evidence of creativity and inventiveness, since original, diverse and fun speeches and presentations must be built to reach the target audience and sell a product to them in a different way.

How to develop creativity?

Creativity is a universal human talent, but not always universally cultivated. Some strategies to develop creativity can be the following:

  • cultural consumption. Consumption habits of culture as the reading, go to the movies, go to museums and exhibitions, concerts, etc. has an inspiring effect on the mind and promotes creative thinking, since it is a source of free and new associations.
  • brainstorming. The so-called “brainstorming” is a widely used technique to promote the emergence of new ideas and relationships between them, by capturing on paper everything that comes out regarding a main topic, which is written in the middle. Associative freedom often leads down unexpected paths.
  • Sleep. The surrealists affirmed that the dream, the quintessential source of creativity, should be cultivated in order to fill the conscious mind with creative content. That's why they used to paint in the mornings, as close to sleep as possible.
  • lateral thinking. This is the name given to a method of creative thinking that promotes novel connections between ideas, abandoning the logic traditional, and that is usually expressed through riddles, games and riddles, very much in the style of the tradition of Zen culture.
!-- GDPR -->