- What is creative thinking?
- Characteristics of creative thinking
- Phases of the creative process
- Examples of creative thinking
- Critical thinking and creative thinking
We explain what creative thinking is, its characteristics, examples and phases of the creative process. Also, critical thinking.
What is creative thinking?
When we speak of creative thinking, we are alluding to a form of reasoning typical of Humans, which is capable of processing and reformulating information in original, flexible, plastic and fluid ways, or of applying it to the solution of a trouble with which he initially did not look compatible.
In other words, creative thinking revolves around the inventive capacity of the human being and his imagination, which have always allowed the development of tools, different forms of thought, survival strategies or even asking complex questions. Well, creative thinking is not only about aesthetics.
In that way, the creativity It is not a talent available to a few, but every human being is in one way or another capable of it, although some exercise creative thinking more often than others, or more easily.
Thus, a person you can be very creative in a certain area of your life and not be in many others. In addition, it can be encouraged and developed through techniques various, such as lateral thinking, Brainstorming, DaVinci Technique, etc.
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Characteristics of creative thinking
Although creative thinking tends to be original, that is, to generate a new mental content, always part of something previous. Even the most creative minds require a diet abundant in information, since the greater the management of data, greater creative possibilities.
Among other things, creativity is the ability to recompose or reassemble in a new way the information available. This process is not necessarily fully conscious, and it does not necessarily occur in an orderly fashion.
Creativity relies heavily on the unconscious and on mental processes that could be mysterious at first glance, but which end up manifesting in the conscious mind. The artists of the surrealismFor example, they believed that sleeping was the best way to promote creativity, and they tried to recover the potential of dreams in their works.
Thus, broadly speaking, creative thinking is expected:
- That produces new perspectives and ways of thinking, questioning ideas, associating ideas, mixing ideas, etc.
- That offers revolutionary solutions to an established problem.
- To fully develop the content of new ideas and be able to foresee their conclusions and / or applications.
It is usual to link creative thinking to Arts and aesthetic work, but it is also found in the innovation technological, in the scientific field and even in the questions of everyday life.
Phases of the creative process
Every creative process takes place in four distinct stages, which are:
- Preparation or research. As its name implies, this is the preparatory stage of the draft, in which the basic information regarding the matter of interest and the state of mind conducive to original ideas is acquired. This can happen quickly or gradually, and is equivalent to sowing the seeds of creativity.
- Incubation. Once the necessary information has been collected and the necessary mental state has been acquired, creativity continues its march in a less obvious way, linked to the unconscious and the imperceptible, in which apparently no effort is made. This is the incubation, the process of germination of ideas.
- Illumination. The very name of this stage suggests what eventually ends up happening: there is a flash, a vision, a manifestation in the imagination of the original idea resulting from the previous stages, and that is associated with the very birth of the idea.
- Check. In this stage there is a return to conscious work, now under the paradigms of a new idea that you have, and that will require conscious efforts to materialize.
Examples of creative thinking
Examples of creative thinking can be:
- Works of art and aesthetic representations. Paints, stories, poems, songs, dances, theater pieces, etc.
- The original recipes. Gastronomic, manufacturing ingredients, manufacturing materials, etc.
- Scientific solutions. Mathematical theorems, revolutionary ideas, innovative perspectives, etc.
- The fantasies. Dreams and even games children.
Critical thinking and creative thinking
Critical thinking and creative thinking are often thought to be antagonistic, that is, they move in opposite directions. This is because creative thinking is divergent, that is, it is enhanced by dispersion and the unconscious approach to ideas.
On the contrary, critical thinking requires a focus of attention on the analyzed object and the application of methods analytical and rational. That is, one breaks the rules and the other follows them to the letter.
However, both ways of thinking are complementary, constituting two approaches to reality at our disposal. When reasoning fails, it is often because too little of the solution is being incorporated. intuition and the creative, and vice versa.