Creative thinking is, in essence, the psychology of the creator. It is believed that the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for creative thinking, and that is why left-handed people most often have more pronounced creative abilities than right-handed people.
Thanks to this type of thinking, in society there are new ideas, material values, and everything that carries unusual and non-standard. The result of the creative work of one author is very few who can repeat, and this is what distinguishes creativity from production, which has predetermined standards and an action plan for creating a product.
This makes creativity a very valuable phenomenon in our life: if you only see the difference between handmade furniture and standard factory furniture, between a picture painted by a painter and printed using a machine, text created by a person and artificial intelligence, it will immediately become clear why it is so appreciated in any area of human activity.
Psychology of Creative Thinking
In psychology, there is a whole section that is devoted to the study of creative thinking and the products that are created using it. But specialists who work in this direction have a problem of criteria: after all, in fact, everything that has been created in the world is unique. Thus, the field of study of the issue takes on such a vague form that it is practically impossible to come to specific scientific conclusions: there are no identical movements, events, even the same words are pronounced differently each time. However, scientists still bothered to find some common points that are key in the process of creating a unique:
- So, first there is an occasion to realize creativity. The same stage is called preparation in some sources, but there are many processes between them that the human brain needs to work through to start creating: first, the person understands what he needs, and then he prepares for it. Here, the goal is formed, and the tasks that need to be solved in order to achieve it emerge.
- Stage of incubation. Then the person is distracted from a specific direction, paying attention to areas that may be associated with the subject of creation.
- Stage of insight. At that moment, Archimedes exclaimed: “Eureka!”, And an apple fell on Newton. Something serves as a hint, and then the human brain deduces the optimal solution to the problem, on which much thought was conducted. This moment is the climax in the creative process.
- The final step is verification. After the fall of the apple, Newton returns to his notes and conducts experiments that confirm the discovery. The painter at this moment looks around the completed picture, correlating colors, evaluates the technique and checks how correctly the idea is conveyed. After that, the creation is ready, and society begins to use the created.
For a full understanding of creativity, it is important to understand that it is a way of liberation.
Creative thinking: characterization
This type of thinking has certain features that allow you to see and invent non-standard and new.
- Attentiveness and "lateral thinking." Creative thinking requires that a person sees the non-standard basis of phenomena, events, objects. Most often, it’s the details that can “remind” a person that an item can be used differently. And if this subject is seen as integral, it is unlikely that the observer will be visited by thoughts of any new method of its application, because it already exists. The simplest example is a mug. If you take it holistically, then we know that they drink liquid from it. But if you pay attention to its shape, material, and, for example, leave it on your desktop, then sooner or later the idea will appear that it is convenient to put pencils and pens into it. So there will be a "new" invention - stand for pens.
- Good memory. A person with a short memory cannot have creative thinking, because creativity is a long process that requires the ripening and knowledge of third-party facts. The creator should be focused on several phenomena at the same time: the very subject of creation and phenomena, information about which will make it perfect. A randomly seen thing once pops up in memory and turns out to be the key to a solution.
- Flexibility and associativity of thinking. Creative thinking is often accompanied by a rejection of the usual hypotheses. If you do not show mental flexibility and listen to obsolete theories, then this will never lead to discovery. Associative thinking helps creatively “connect” and classify objects and phenomena, which, in turn, leads to unique ideas, one of which may turn out to be ingenious.
Thus, creative thinking nevertheless has some common characteristics, and requires a person to have some makings, developing which he can become a happy owner of fresh ideas and unique items.