From: The Conversation
Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?
Creativity is often defined as the ability to come up with new and useful ideas. Like intelligence, it can be considered a trait that everyone—not just creative “geniuses” like Picasso and Steve Jobs—possesses in some capacity.
It’s not just your ability to draw a picture or design a product. We all need to think creatively in our daily lives, whether it’s figuring out how to make dinner using leftovers or fashioning a Halloween costume out of clothes in your closet. Creative tasks range from what researchers call “little-c” creativity – making a website, crafting a birthday present or coming up with a funny joke—to “Big-C” creativity: writing a speech, composing a poem or designing a scientific experiment.
Psychology and neuroscience researchers have started to identify thinking processes and brain regions involved with creativity. Recent evidence suggests that creativity involves a complex interplay between spontaneous and controlled thinking – the ability to both spontaneously brainstorm ideas and deliberately evaluate them to determine whether they’ll actually work.
Despite this progress, the answer to one question has remained particularly elusive: What makes some people more creative than others?
Read the whole story (subscription may be required): The Conversation
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Comments
I feel there are many people walking around that have not even had the opportunity to tap into their creativity due to many circumstances. I feel that environment/exposure has a lot to do with this. In my own experience, would have loved the opportunity to express myself creatively, but my upbringing and living circumstances did not promote this. I was a professional singer for many years but lived a secret life that was not supported by family. This did affect my creative juices- my desire to rise above this was constant but difficult to overcome. I see children/ adults nowadays with endless money and opportunity-they are given the space/ opportunity to use their brain in that manner. They are not concerned about surviving and having to be “practical.” I would be curious on exactly who you tested for this.
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