25.4 Thinking Creatively

25-6 What is creativity, and what fosters it?

creativity the ability to produce new and valuable ideas.

Creativity is the ability to produce ideas that are both novel and valuable (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). Consider Princeton mathematician Andrew Wiles’ incredible, creative moment in 1994. Pierre de Fermat, a seventeenth-century mischievous genius, had challenged mathematicians of his day to match his solutions to various number theory problems. His most famous challenge—Fermat’s last theorem—baffled the greatest mathematical minds, even after a $2 million prize (in today’s dollars) was offered in 1908 to whoever first created a proof.

Wiles had pondered Fermat’s theorem for more than 30 years and had come to the brink of a solution. One morning, out of the blue, the final “incredible revelation” struck him. “It was so indescribably beautiful; it was so simple and so elegant. I couldn’t understand how I’d missed it. . . . It was the most important moment of my working life” (Singh, 1997, p. 25).

convergent thinking narrowing the available problem solutions to determine the single best solution.

divergent thinking expanding the number of possible problem solutions; creative thinking that diverges in different directions.

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Creativity like Wiles’ is supported by a certain level of aptitude (ability to learn). Those who score exceptionally high in quantitative (math) aptitude as 13-year-olds, for example, are more likely to obtain graduate science and math degrees and create published or patented work (Park et al., 2008; Robertson et al., 2010). Greater intelligence and working memory also boost creativity (Arneson et al., 2011; Hambrick & Meinz, 2011). But creativity is more than school smarts, and it requires a different kind of thinking: Aptitude tests such as the SAT, which demand a single correct answer, require convergent thinking. Creativity tests (How many uses can you think of for a brick?) require expansive, divergent thinking.

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Industrious creativity Researcher Sally Reis (2001) found that notably creative women were typically “intelligent, hard working, imaginative, and strong willed” as girls, noting examples such as Nobel Prize–winning geneticist Barbara McClintock. In her acceptance speech for the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature, author Alice Munro, shown here, also spoke about creativity as hard work. “Stories are so important in the world. . . . [The part that’s hardest is] when you go over the story and realize how bad it is. You know, the first part, excitement, the second, pretty good, but then you pick it up one morning and you think, ‘what nonsense,’ and that is when you really have to get to work on it. And for me, it always seemed the right thing to do.”
Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images

Robert Sternberg and his colleagues believe creativity has five components (Sternberg, 1988, 2003; Sternberg & Lubart, 1991, 1992):

  1. Expertise—well-developed knowledge—furnishes the ideas, images, and phrases we use as mental building blocks. “Chance favors only the prepared mind,” observed Louis Pasteur. The more blocks we have, the more chances we have to combine them in novel ways. Wiles’ well-developed knowledge put the needed theorems and methods at his disposal.

  2. Imaginative thinking skills provide the ability to see things in novel ways, to recognize patterns, and to make connections. Having mastered a problem’s basic elements, we redefine or explore it in a new way. Wiles’ imaginative solution combined two partial solutions.

  3. A venturesome personality seeks new experiences, tolerates ambiguity and risk, and perseveres in overcoming obstacles. Wiles said he labored in near-isolation from the mathematics community partly to stay focused and avoid distraction. Such determination is an enduring trait.

  4. Intrinsic motivation is the quality of being driven more by interest, satisfaction, and challenge than by external pressures (Amabile & Hennessey, 1992). Creative people focus less on extrinsic motivators—meeting deadlines, impressing people, or making money—than on the pleasure and stimulation of the work itself. As Wiles noted, “I was so obsessed by this problem that . . . I was thinking about it all the time—[from] when I woke up in the morning to when I went to sleep at night” (Singh & Riber, 1997).

  5. A creative environment sparks, supports, and refines creative ideas. Wiles stood on the shoulders of others and collaborated with a former student. After studying the careers of 2026 prominent scientists and inventors, Dean Keith Simonton (1992) noted that the most eminent were mentored, challenged, and supported by their colleagues. Creativity-fostering environments support innovation, team building, and communication (Hülsheger et al., 2009). They also minimize anxiety and foster contemplation (Byron & Khazanchi, 2011). After Jonas Salk solved a problem that led to the polio vaccine while visiting a monastery, he designed the Salk Institute to provide contemplative spaces where scientists could work without interruption (Sternberg, 2006).

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A creative environment
The New Yorker Collection, 2010, Mick Stevens, from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

For those seeking to boost the creative process, research offers some ideas:

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Imaginative thinking Cartoonists often display creativity as they see things in new ways or make unusual connections.
The New Yorker Collection, 2006, Christopher Weyant, from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

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