Over the years, I've been a little bit concerned with the way in which we portray young children and teens as being "creative" as if to say they are not intelligence, or mathematically inclined because they are "creative" as if something is wrong with that. Just because someone is creative doesn't mean they won't succeed at something, in fact it is that very creativity which will ensure their success if we can find their niche, and let them go explore that to their heart's content. Okay so let's talk about this for second shall we? Specifically let's talk about creativity if we might.
During the 1950s the then President of the American Psychological Association, JP Guilford wrote several interesting papers on human creativity, all became part of the foundation of this category and part of the future studies that brought us where we are today in studying the creative mind. Between the 1950s and 1960s Guilford's work encompassed questions of the creative mind and human intelligence, and types of intelligence which he surmised there were as many as 120 different types.
In his papers he talks about multiple intelligences in the same vein as Howard Gardner later did, in fact, Gardner had cited him numerous times in his work. Now then, when it comes to creative intelligence Guilford suggests the following main factors; Fluency, Flexibility, Novelty, Analyzing, Synthesizing, Evaluation, Reorganizing, Redefining, and all this pertaining to the Degree of Complexity.
Okay so, it is this "Degree of Complexity" which intrigues me, and Guilford defines it in this way, and I apologize to my reader if I am destroying the terminology of psychology, however I write as an individual thinker, not beholden to the academic writing barriers of the American Psychological Association. Guilford states that the extent of creativity (degree of complexity) has to do with the number of concepts, ideas, thoughts, nuances, facts, observations, and innovations one individual can hold in their minds at one time, or at the "same time" as he suggests.
Well, as a creative thinker at the top of the scale on the creativity tests, TTCT or Torrance Test of Creative Thinkers, I believe it is this point of "Degree of Complexity" which is the key to the ability to come up with endless original thoughts, and in my case 2 per day for 7-years in row now. So how does this happen? I believe it happens due to the curious mind wishing to explore all areas of the human endeavor, with a thirst for knowledge, and an abundant ability to cross pollinate all that they see, have learned, and observed.
As long as their mind can handle it, and continues on this process, they will have achieved one of the toughest components of creativity which I believe Guilford summed up correctly when he defined in his paper the importance of the "degree of complexity" as the most important key. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Creativity. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net
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