I know that you have some expertise in testing, so I will ask, are there tests that measure creativity? Critical thinking, sure, I test that all the time. But I’m not sure I know how to test creativity. Well, one way is to wait and watch and see what happens. Creative people eventually do something creative. But it can take time, and in my experience it usually doesn’t come on demand. I wish it would. My life would be simpler if I didn’t have to wait around for my brain to let me in on what I’m thinking.
I’m a big fan of critical thinking. I had a professor back in the day who was a wonder at critique. He would assign an article and then after we had read it he would go through it with us, step by step, to show the path of the argument and then the unstated assumptions and gaps. I was in awe of his insight, and I have tried ever after to follow his example. But he wasn’t particularly creative, and he didn’t do a lot of original work.Another professor I studied with was not particularly good at critique but he was tremendously creative. He would throw out a zillion ideas, and some of them were great, a couple of them changed the field in fundamental ways, but some were duds. He usually didn’t stick around to test his ideas, because he was off on a new direction. It was up to people like me to come along and test what he said to see what held up and what didn’t. It was very exciting to be around him, but I never figured out how to be creative the way he was.I guess it takes all kinds.
I’m an expert in assessment, focusing on executives, but on the side I’ve spent a lot of time examining writers and creativity, so I know a fair amount about it. There are a number of “tests” of creativity, but they don’t work as standardized tools, which if you think about it is obvious!One of the simplest and most elegant is to tell someone “here’s a brick. Come up with as many things you can think of to do with it in the next thirty seconds.”There is a good real of research into creativity, and I will state flatly that creativity is hardwired into the human animal. Putting it to work or its best ability requires practice and raw material – neither of which this idiotic “test culture” supports.The standardized test movement has been attacked since the beginning. The SAT, for example, predicts one (1) thing: freshman year grades. Not graduation rates, not work success, not anything else.While I’m on my rant, liberal arts education builds critical thinking ability, especially compare & contrasting ability, conceptual thinking (making patterns out of complex information), and so forth. Contrary to the people like Scott Walker (himself a dropout) who want to turn every college and university into a trade school, liberal arts colleges serve a vital purpose — and if we want to talk about business, surveys of CEOs say they want more liberal arts graduates, not just people trained in some narrow technical skill.
Well, as a personality psychologist, we may be using different definitions.I think the definition of “creativity” tends to be set at too high a bar; people judge themselves by whether they can write like Shakespeare, theorize like Einstein, or paint like Picasso. Your comment on “something truly novel” suggests you are inclined that way.I prefer David Perkins’ “Generate and Select” framing of creativity: first you generate links farther and farther out; then you select when to stop. Erase the middle links, and people go “how did you come up with that?”At its very simplest, creativity is making new links between different things that others have not done before (or even that you don’t know about). By that definition, of course human beings are all creative. It’s the extent and depth of creativity where people vary: changing up the spices in your spaghetti sauce is creative, but it won’t make you a Cordon Bleu chef.A lot of people also believe, falsely, I think, that creativity is about that giant burst of brilliance. A good deal of research suggests that the “burst” is either fictitious (Howard Gruber pretty much nailed Darwin’s description from his own memoirs!) or deceptive, in that a lot of incremental shifts will eventually look dramatic.My point being that the fundamental basis of creativity is so basic that all humans have it, and it can therefore be developed.So my view is much like martens!
Dtroutma about 9 years ago
Nice image to provoke thought, but why do we discourage actual thought?
braindead Premium Member about 9 years ago
Not to worry. It’s been determined that ‘No Child Left Behind’ meant that Jeb would be president, not just the ‘Houston Miracle’.
lonecat about 9 years ago
I know that you have some expertise in testing, so I will ask, are there tests that measure creativity? Critical thinking, sure, I test that all the time. But I’m not sure I know how to test creativity. Well, one way is to wait and watch and see what happens. Creative people eventually do something creative. But it can take time, and in my experience it usually doesn’t come on demand. I wish it would. My life would be simpler if I didn’t have to wait around for my brain to let me in on what I’m thinking.
lonecat about 9 years ago
I’m a big fan of critical thinking. I had a professor back in the day who was a wonder at critique. He would assign an article and then after we had read it he would go through it with us, step by step, to show the path of the argument and then the unstated assumptions and gaps. I was in awe of his insight, and I have tried ever after to follow his example. But he wasn’t particularly creative, and he didn’t do a lot of original work.Another professor I studied with was not particularly good at critique but he was tremendously creative. He would throw out a zillion ideas, and some of them were great, a couple of them changed the field in fundamental ways, but some were duds. He usually didn’t stick around to test his ideas, because he was off on a new direction. It was up to people like me to come along and test what he said to see what held up and what didn’t. It was very exciting to be around him, but I never figured out how to be creative the way he was.I guess it takes all kinds.
Motivemagus about 9 years ago
I’m an expert in assessment, focusing on executives, but on the side I’ve spent a lot of time examining writers and creativity, so I know a fair amount about it. There are a number of “tests” of creativity, but they don’t work as standardized tools, which if you think about it is obvious!One of the simplest and most elegant is to tell someone “here’s a brick. Come up with as many things you can think of to do with it in the next thirty seconds.”There is a good real of research into creativity, and I will state flatly that creativity is hardwired into the human animal. Putting it to work or its best ability requires practice and raw material – neither of which this idiotic “test culture” supports.The standardized test movement has been attacked since the beginning. The SAT, for example, predicts one (1) thing: freshman year grades. Not graduation rates, not work success, not anything else.While I’m on my rant, liberal arts education builds critical thinking ability, especially compare & contrasting ability, conceptual thinking (making patterns out of complex information), and so forth. Contrary to the people like Scott Walker (himself a dropout) who want to turn every college and university into a trade school, liberal arts colleges serve a vital purpose — and if we want to talk about business, surveys of CEOs say they want more liberal arts graduates, not just people trained in some narrow technical skill.
markjoseph125 about 9 years ago
Superb cartoon!
Motivemagus about 9 years ago
Well, as a personality psychologist, we may be using different definitions.I think the definition of “creativity” tends to be set at too high a bar; people judge themselves by whether they can write like Shakespeare, theorize like Einstein, or paint like Picasso. Your comment on “something truly novel” suggests you are inclined that way.I prefer David Perkins’ “Generate and Select” framing of creativity: first you generate links farther and farther out; then you select when to stop. Erase the middle links, and people go “how did you come up with that?”At its very simplest, creativity is making new links between different things that others have not done before (or even that you don’t know about). By that definition, of course human beings are all creative. It’s the extent and depth of creativity where people vary: changing up the spices in your spaghetti sauce is creative, but it won’t make you a Cordon Bleu chef.A lot of people also believe, falsely, I think, that creativity is about that giant burst of brilliance. A good deal of research suggests that the “burst” is either fictitious (Howard Gruber pretty much nailed Darwin’s description from his own memoirs!) or deceptive, in that a lot of incremental shifts will eventually look dramatic.My point being that the fundamental basis of creativity is so basic that all humans have it, and it can therefore be developed.So my view is much like martens!