Creativity

Creativity: A Concept-First Introduction

You already know that people differ in intelligence, aptitude, and personality. Creativity is another dimension of individual difference. It is not a single, rare gift reserved for geniuses. Instead, creativity is the capacity to produce something new and unique — a novel solution, an invention, a poem, a painting, a new chemical process, an innovation in law, or a breakthrough in preventing a disease. The common thread across all these acts is originality.

Levels of Creativity

Creativity is not a single level of achievement. People vary in how much and in what area they are creative.

• Highest level: Bringing out altogether new ideas, facts, theories, or products. Einstein’s theory of relativity is a classic example.
• Lower level: Working on what is already established — modifying it, putting it in a new perspective, or finding a new use for it. This is still creative, just not at the same scale.

An ordinary person engaged in pottery, carpentry, or cooking can be creative, but they are not operating at the same level as an eminent scientist or writer. The key point: all individuals vary in the level and the domain of their creativity.

Development of Creativity

Children begin developing imagination in early childhood. Initially, creativity is expressed through physical activities and non-verbal ways. As language and intellectual functions fully develop, and as the child’s store of knowledge grows, creativity can also be expressed through verbal modes.

Some highly creative individuals show their direction through self-chosen activities. For others, opportunities must be provided before their hidden creative potential can manifest.

Determinants of Creativity: Heredity and Environment

As with other psychological attributes, creativity results from a complex interaction of heredity and environment.

• Heredity sets the limits of creative potential.
• Environment stimulates the development of that potential. Factors like motivation, commitment, family support, peer influences, and training opportunities determine how much of the potential is realised, when, and in what specific form and direction.

No amount of training can transform an average person into a Tagore or Shakespeare. However, every individual can raise their creative potential beyond its present level. (You have already studied strategies to enhance creativity in Class XI.)

Creativity and Intelligence: The Key Relationship

This is a central debate. Consider two students:

• Sunita: Excellent student, does work on time, scores highest grades, grasps quickly, reproduces accurately, but rarely comes up with her own ideas. She is considered intelligent.
• Rita: Average student, not consistently high grades, prefers to learn on her own, improvises new ways of doing things. She is considered creative.

A person who learns faster and reproduces accurately is seen as intelligent, not necessarily creative — unless they devise new ways of learning and doing.

Research findings:

• Terman (1920s) found that persons with high IQ were not necessarily creative.
• Creative ideas can come from persons who do not have a very high IQ.
• Not even one of those identified as gifted (followed up through adult life) became well-known for creativity in some field.
• Both high and low creativity can be found in highly intelligent children and in children of average intelligence.

The conclusion: The relationship between creativity and intelligence is positive, but it is not a simple one-to-one link.

• All creative acts require some minimum ability to acquire knowledge, comprehend, retain, and retrieve. A creative writer needs facility with language; an artist must understand the effect of a painting technique; a scientist must be able to reason. So, a certain level of intelligence is required for creativity.
• Beyond that threshold, intelligence does not correlate well with creativity. A very intelligent person is not automatically creative, and a creative person may not have an exceptionally high IQ.

The same person can be both creative and intelligent, but it is not necessary that intelligent ones (in the conventional sense) must be creative. Intelligence by itself does not ensure creativity. …