week-03 (Creative Thinkers and Non-creative Thinkers)
Difference Between Creative Thinkers and Non-creative Thinkers
Is creative thinking really that much different from more methodical, functional thinking? Do right-brain dominant individuals solve problems any differently than left-brain dominant individuals? Finally, are highly creative individuals really any different from those people who aren't especially creative?
Researchers have long debated these questions, with some arguing that, yes, the process of creative thinking and the method by which creative individuals solve problems are indeed dissimilar to those employed by less creative individuals, just as highly creative individuals themselves are dissimilar to less creative individuals. On the other hand, some researchers maintain just the opposite. As a result, several scientific theories have emerged in the ongoing attempt to understand and explain the creative mind.
Right-Brain and Left-Brain Dominant Traits
Does a difference exist between right-brain dominant and left-brain dominant individuals? According to creativity researcher John Chaffee (2000), there is a definite distinction:
1. Left-brain dominant individuals are usually logical in their approach to problems and situations, serious in nature, knowledgeable about a variety of subjects, linear in thinking, structured and organized in their jobs and lives, and rational in making decisions.
2. Right-brain dominant individuals are usually highly intuitive; have little sense of time; enjoy music, clutter, and creative thinking; make decisions based on hunches and emotions; and use holistic thinking.
Brain Activity of Creative and Non-creative Problem Solvers
A study conducted in 2007 by John Kounios, professor of Psychology at Drexel University, and Mark Jung-Beeman, of Northwestern University, compared the brain activity of creative and noncreative problem solvers; and the results of the study were published in the journal Neuropsychologia. According to Science Daily, the study revealed that there is “a distinct pattern of brain activity — even while an individual is at rest — in people who tend to solve problems with a sudden creative insight. These creative individuals experience an “Aha! Moment,” – a method that's different from the method utilized by individuals who tend to solve problems more methodically.”
Difference Between Creative Thinkers and Non-creative Thinkers
The Kounios and Jung-Beeman study revealed several interesting facts.
Even before they knew what the study would involve or that they would be called upon to solve problems, the two groups demonstrated strikingly different patterns of brain activity, with the creative thinkers exhibiting far greater brain activity in various regions of the right hemisphere. According to Science Daily (2007), “This finding suggests that even the spontaneous thought of creative individuals, as in their daydreams, contains more remote associations.”
The two groups also exhibited different activity in those areas of the brain that process visual information, with the pattern of brainwave activity in creative thinkers being “consistent with diffuse rather than focused visual attention." According to a 2007 edition of Science Daily, this led researchers to conclude that creative individuals tend to “sample the environment for experiences that can trigger remote associations to produce an 'Aha! Moment.'”
How Creative and Non-creative Thinkers Solve Problems
According to Science Daily, when it comes to solving problems, creative thinkers tend to solve them in entirely different ways than more methodical thinkers.
It was found that when a creative thinker encounters a problem, something as commonplace or simple as “a glimpse of an advertisement on a billboard or a word spoken in an overheard conversation could spark an association that leads to a solution.”
Methodical thinkers, in contrast, are more focused and, therefore, not as easily distracted as creative thinkers. Therefore, methodical thinkers tend to solve problems most effectively when the strategy for a solution is already known to them, as in the case of “balancing a checkbook or baking a cake using a known recipe," as explained in Science Daily.
Improving Creative Thinking Skills
According to William Harman and Harold Rheingold, authors of the 1994 book titled Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights, the ability to imagine and, therefore, create in one's mind images of things that are different from ordinary reality has long been recognized as the major trait of the truly creative mind. It's said that highly creative people are more adept at seeing images in their mind's eye than people who are not especially creative.
It has also been demonstrated, based upon cognitive research, that people for whom visualization does not come easily can actually strengthen their mind's ability to see images (strengthen their imaginations) by making a concerted effort and participating in creativity-inducing exercises and activities. In other words, people can learn to be more creative. They just have to want to become more creative.
Sources:
Chaffee, J. (2000) Thinking critically: Sixth edition; New York: Houghton-Mifflin.
Harman, W. & Rheingold, H. (1984) Higher creativity: Liberating the unconscious for breakthrough insights. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Science Daily (2007) Brain activity differs for creative and non-creative thinkers. Retrieved September 25, 2009 from Science Daily.com.
I found this article when i was researching about creativity thinking one of the best article i ever read.regarding to this article says about the ways of thinking method and scientific ways of brain how its work in progress of thinking and i understand clearly different between creativity thinkers and non creativity thinkers differentials in step by step method clearly ,going through on this article more help full for my studies.
Is creative thinking really that much different from more methodical, functional thinking? Do right-brain dominant individuals solve problems any differently than left-brain dominant individuals? Finally, are highly creative individuals really any different from those people who aren't especially creative?
Researchers have long debated these questions, with some arguing that, yes, the process of creative thinking and the method by which creative individuals solve problems are indeed dissimilar to those employed by less creative individuals, just as highly creative individuals themselves are dissimilar to less creative individuals. On the other hand, some researchers maintain just the opposite. As a result, several scientific theories have emerged in the ongoing attempt to understand and explain the creative mind.
Right-Brain and Left-Brain Dominant Traits
Does a difference exist between right-brain dominant and left-brain dominant individuals? According to creativity researcher John Chaffee (2000), there is a definite distinction:
1. Left-brain dominant individuals are usually logical in their approach to problems and situations, serious in nature, knowledgeable about a variety of subjects, linear in thinking, structured and organized in their jobs and lives, and rational in making decisions.
2. Right-brain dominant individuals are usually highly intuitive; have little sense of time; enjoy music, clutter, and creative thinking; make decisions based on hunches and emotions; and use holistic thinking.
Brain Activity of Creative and Non-creative Problem Solvers
A study conducted in 2007 by John Kounios, professor of Psychology at Drexel University, and Mark Jung-Beeman, of Northwestern University, compared the brain activity of creative and noncreative problem solvers; and the results of the study were published in the journal Neuropsychologia. According to Science Daily, the study revealed that there is “a distinct pattern of brain activity — even while an individual is at rest — in people who tend to solve problems with a sudden creative insight. These creative individuals experience an “Aha! Moment,” – a method that's different from the method utilized by individuals who tend to solve problems more methodically.”
Difference Between Creative Thinkers and Non-creative Thinkers
The Kounios and Jung-Beeman study revealed several interesting facts.
Even before they knew what the study would involve or that they would be called upon to solve problems, the two groups demonstrated strikingly different patterns of brain activity, with the creative thinkers exhibiting far greater brain activity in various regions of the right hemisphere. According to Science Daily (2007), “This finding suggests that even the spontaneous thought of creative individuals, as in their daydreams, contains more remote associations.”
The two groups also exhibited different activity in those areas of the brain that process visual information, with the pattern of brainwave activity in creative thinkers being “consistent with diffuse rather than focused visual attention." According to a 2007 edition of Science Daily, this led researchers to conclude that creative individuals tend to “sample the environment for experiences that can trigger remote associations to produce an 'Aha! Moment.'”
How Creative and Non-creative Thinkers Solve Problems
According to Science Daily, when it comes to solving problems, creative thinkers tend to solve them in entirely different ways than more methodical thinkers.
It was found that when a creative thinker encounters a problem, something as commonplace or simple as “a glimpse of an advertisement on a billboard or a word spoken in an overheard conversation could spark an association that leads to a solution.”
Methodical thinkers, in contrast, are more focused and, therefore, not as easily distracted as creative thinkers. Therefore, methodical thinkers tend to solve problems most effectively when the strategy for a solution is already known to them, as in the case of “balancing a checkbook or baking a cake using a known recipe," as explained in Science Daily.
Improving Creative Thinking Skills
According to William Harman and Harold Rheingold, authors of the 1994 book titled Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for Breakthrough Insights, the ability to imagine and, therefore, create in one's mind images of things that are different from ordinary reality has long been recognized as the major trait of the truly creative mind. It's said that highly creative people are more adept at seeing images in their mind's eye than people who are not especially creative.
It has also been demonstrated, based upon cognitive research, that people for whom visualization does not come easily can actually strengthen their mind's ability to see images (strengthen their imaginations) by making a concerted effort and participating in creativity-inducing exercises and activities. In other words, people can learn to be more creative. They just have to want to become more creative.
Sources:
Chaffee, J. (2000) Thinking critically: Sixth edition; New York: Houghton-Mifflin.
Harman, W. & Rheingold, H. (1984) Higher creativity: Liberating the unconscious for breakthrough insights. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Science Daily (2007) Brain activity differs for creative and non-creative thinkers. Retrieved September 25, 2009 from Science Daily.com.
I found this article when i was researching about creativity thinking one of the best article i ever read.regarding to this article says about the ways of thinking method and scientific ways of brain how its work in progress of thinking and i understand clearly different between creativity thinkers and non creativity thinkers differentials in step by step method clearly ,going through on this article more help full for my studies.
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