Creativity: Concept and Types

Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing.

“Creativity is a combinatorial force: it’s our ability to tap into our ‘inner’ pool of resources knowledge, insight, information, inspiration and all the fragments populating our minds that we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world and to combine them in extraordinary new ways.” :Maria Popova, Brainpickings

“Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy.” :Rollo May, The Courage to Create

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible (such as an idea, a scientific theory, a musical composition, or a joke) or a physical object (such as an invention, a printed literary work, or a painting).

Scholarly interest in creativity is found in a number of disciplines, primarily psychology, business studies, and cognitive science, but also education, technology, engineering, philosophy (particularly philosophy of science), theology, sociology, linguistics, and economics, covering the relations between creativity and general intelligence, personality type, mental and neural processes, mental health, or artificial intelligence; the potential for fostering creativity through education and training; the fostering of creativity for national economic benefit, and the application of creative resources to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning.

Types of Creativity

1. Deliberate and Cognitive creativity

People who possess deliberate and cognitive characteristics are purposeful. They have a great amount of knowledge about a particular subject and combine their skills and capabilities to prepare a course of action to achieve something. This type of creativity built when people work for a very long time in a particular area.

People who fall under this type of category of creativity are usually proficient at research, problem- solving, investigation and experimentation. This type of creativity is located in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, which is at the front part of the brain. These types of creative people spend a great deal of time every single day testing to develop new solutions.

Thomas Alva Edison is one prominent example of this type of creative people. He ran experiment after experiment before inventing electricity, the light bulb, and telecommunication. Hence, deliberate and cognitive creativity requires a great deal of time, dedication and abundance of knowledge about a particular subject.

2. Deliberate and Emotional Creativity

People who are categorized as deliberate and emotional let their work influenced by their state of emotions. These types of creative people are very emotional and sensitive in nature. These individuals prefer relatively quiet and personal time to reflect and they usually have a habit of diary writing. However, they are equally logical and rational in decision making.

Their creativity is always a balanced product of deliberate emotional thinking and logical actions. This type of creativity is found in the amygdala and cingulate cortex parts of the human brain. Amygdala is responsible for human emotions whereas cingulate cortex helps in learning and information processing. This type of creativity happens to people at random moments. Those moments are usually referred to as “a-ha!” moments when someone suddenly thinks of a solution to some problem or think of some innovative idea.

For example, there are situations when you feel low and emotional which distracts you from your work. In those kinds of situations, you should take 5 minutes and point out the things which are making you sad and keep them aside and focus on the work in hand. It will help you to get improvised results and you will get work done easily. One should seek “quiet time” for deliberate and emotional creativity to happen to them.

3. Spontaneous and Cognitive creativity

There are times when you spend a long time to crack a problem but can’t think of any solution. For example, when you want to make a schedule for a month to get a job done, but you can’t seem to think of any possible way and when you are watching television and having your relaxed time and suddenly you think of a solution and everything falls in place. The same case happened with the great scientist Isaac Newton. He got the idea about the law of gravity when an apple hit his head while he was sitting under a tree and relaxing.

This is the “Eureka!” moments for Newton and an excellent example of a spontaneous and cognitive person. This type of creativity happens when one has the knowledge to get a particular job done, but he requires inspiration and a hint to walk towards the right path. This type of creativity usually happens at the most inconvenient time, such as, when you are in bed with your partner or having a shower. Spontaneous and cognitive creativity takes place when the conscious mind stops working and go to relax and unconscious mind gets a chance to work.

Mostly, this type of creative person stops conscious thinking when they need to do “out of the box” thinking. By indulging in different and unrelated activities, the unconscious mind gets a chance to connect information in new ways which provide solutions to the problems. Therefore, to let this type of creativity happen one should take a break from the problem and get away to let conscious mind overtake.

4. Spontaneous and Emotional Creativity

Spontaneous and emotional creativity takes place in the “amygdala” part of the human brain. Amygdala is responsible for all emotional type of thinking in the human brain. Spontaneous ideas and creativity happen when conscious and Prefrontal brain is resting. This type of creativity is mostly found in a great artist such as musicians, painters, and writers etc. This type of creativity is also related to “epiphanies”.

Epiphany is a sudden realization of something. Spontaneous and emotional creativity is responsible for a scientific breakthrough, religious and also philosophical discoveries. This allows the enlightened person to look at a problem or situation with a different and deeper viewpoint.

Those moments are defined as rare moments when great discoveries take place. There is no need to have specific knowledge for “spontaneous and emotional” creativity to happen but there should be a skill such as writing, musical or artistic. This type of creativity can’t be obtained by working on it.