Just look at their artwork: preschoolers are the most creative and exuberant artists!
5
Another thought re/creativity.......
In NYTimes comment sections we tend to agonize over the "stupidity" of poor, rural red state voters, and living in a red state myself, I've been inclined to agree. But at the same time, I realize one big cyber-attack could bring the urban world to its knees. There are many who wouldn't even know how to sew on a button, much less exercise the flexibility, creativity and resourcefulness necessary to devise clothes, food and shelter. We've replaced manual skills and personal creativity with paying others to do everything for us, but if this house of cards fell apart, it's the poor who may well inherit the earth.
In NYTimes comment sections we tend to agonize over the "stupidity" of poor, rural red state voters, and living in a red state myself, I've been inclined to agree. But at the same time, I realize one big cyber-attack could bring the urban world to its knees. There are many who wouldn't even know how to sew on a button, much less exercise the flexibility, creativity and resourcefulness necessary to devise clothes, food and shelter. We've replaced manual skills and personal creativity with paying others to do everything for us, but if this house of cards fell apart, it's the poor who may well inherit the earth.
11
Guess valid to some extent on mundane matters. For me it doesn't explain why some visual painters like Pollock would burn out early on while a de Kooning, Hopper, Turner or those wonderful long lived French wonders clicked along until the necessary endpoint.
Article fails to give any merit to drive, commitment, love of creation that sustains the most vigorous of both the legends and the failed vainful.
Only good thing one could say about a younger Hitler/artist is he knew when to quit. That's unusual today when just getting enough paper under the belt can obtain a lifelong teaching assignment.
Credit a Mondrian with both a change of style later in life and to get out of Dodge when the crazed paperhanger began "winning".
No credit to the money-mad art dealer telling a Kline not to work in colors because the collectors won't accept them.
Adult life throws a hell of a lot more curves than the softballs of youth. More amazing to me that humanity has survived such that it has than that a kid can bust a high score in this or that no account event.
Personally I'm past point of any fascination with the latest 8-10 yr old phenom touted as 'next great thing'. Has to be at least a Baby Driver effort to get past my moat of disinterest. Precious little these days making the impacts of 50s to 80s in art world. Biggest child of them all Koons certainly is not a fit; just makes me reach for Ignore button.
Article fails to give any merit to drive, commitment, love of creation that sustains the most vigorous of both the legends and the failed vainful.
Only good thing one could say about a younger Hitler/artist is he knew when to quit. That's unusual today when just getting enough paper under the belt can obtain a lifelong teaching assignment.
Credit a Mondrian with both a change of style later in life and to get out of Dodge when the crazed paperhanger began "winning".
No credit to the money-mad art dealer telling a Kline not to work in colors because the collectors won't accept them.
Adult life throws a hell of a lot more curves than the softballs of youth. More amazing to me that humanity has survived such that it has than that a kid can bust a high score in this or that no account event.
Personally I'm past point of any fascination with the latest 8-10 yr old phenom touted as 'next great thing'. Has to be at least a Baby Driver effort to get past my moat of disinterest. Precious little these days making the impacts of 50s to 80s in art world. Biggest child of them all Koons certainly is not a fit; just makes me reach for Ignore button.
1
Many do not realize that creativity is a learned mental process that wants one to keep the imagination shifting like Proteus; engaged in creation. One has to learn how to learn and how to create and, for me that process is in everything that I do except taking care of my bodily duties – usually.
2
as you age you learn to fall into line .... not stand out
4
"…waste time considering crazy possibilities that will never work, something that both pre=schoolers and teenagers are known to do."
Hey, I'm way past those age groups and I do loony things all the time. Reality is vastly overrated, I have discovered.
Hey, I'm way past those age groups and I do loony things all the time. Reality is vastly overrated, I have discovered.
4
My mother was wonderfully creative, not just as an artist, but also in terms of everyday resourcefulness. Having grown up in the Great Depression, she reveled in repurposing, "making do"....not just to save money, but for the creative challenge! Buying stuff, relying on someone else to do stuff for you......that's not creative. Over the years I've noticed displays of wealth, rather than DIY creativity, have taken over. Even most Etsy crafts attempt to mimic mass produced, rather than daring to look handmade. There used to be cachet to the handmade and original.....now it's all about name brands. Grown-up women buy pre-torn jeans and adult coloring books.....they used to sew their own clothes. Necessity is the mother of invention and people are sated. All indicative of late-stage capitalism, if you ask me. Stay hungry.
23
"... a solution to the evolutionary paradox that is human childhood and adolescence. We humans have an exceptionally long childhood and prolonged adolescence. Why make human children so helpless for so long...?"
Little kids worked in mines and factories as recently as a hundred years ago, and in many parts of the world still do. So whether anyone is investing a lot of time and effort into caring for them can be debated. And clearly the evolutionary jury is in on the value of "creative thinking." It simply isn't an essential trait for the vast majority of people to get through their daily lives.
Little kids worked in mines and factories as recently as a hundred years ago, and in many parts of the world still do. So whether anyone is investing a lot of time and effort into caring for them can be debated. And clearly the evolutionary jury is in on the value of "creative thinking." It simply isn't an essential trait for the vast majority of people to get through their daily lives.
And this is called “research”? Comparing contrived scenarios among 4-5 year olds, 6-11 and 12-14 year old age groups, and finally adults, and then making some conclusion about creativity from a problem solving exercise? How unscientific! Selection bias? How many individuals in each segment? What about the socioeconomic status of each group? Were they random? Did they represent multiple zip codes, races, gender?
Is defining creativity specific to the ability to solve a problem in the framework created by the researchers? And then we jump from the preschoolers’ superior ability to put together the blocks in a format considered “creative” by the authors, to a conclusion that children are more creative than adults? Really?
Jumping on the “results” from social scientists’ research studies, and generalizing the meaning to a universe of humans is crazy! Like fake news, fake science grabs headlines when it applies a teeny finding to the entire human race! Age segmenting creativity using a 2 two dimensional format of putting together blocks with symbols and geometric figures may indicate more about logical (or illogical) reasoning than creativity. Please, save your readers from reading such inconsequential trivia.
Is defining creativity specific to the ability to solve a problem in the framework created by the researchers? And then we jump from the preschoolers’ superior ability to put together the blocks in a format considered “creative” by the authors, to a conclusion that children are more creative than adults? Really?
Jumping on the “results” from social scientists’ research studies, and generalizing the meaning to a universe of humans is crazy! Like fake news, fake science grabs headlines when it applies a teeny finding to the entire human race! Age segmenting creativity using a 2 two dimensional format of putting together blocks with symbols and geometric figures may indicate more about logical (or illogical) reasoning than creativity. Please, save your readers from reading such inconsequential trivia.
10
Speaking from a life long career as a professional design engineer/inventor, in my 70's, I'm still inventing and developing new products, that never existed previously, at an even faster rate. But I tend nowadays to be more aware of the market forces and get things exactly right first time far more now.
For example, I'm not a fan of the Hyperloop concept, as it seems too rigid (in many ways) for today's mass transport needs and costs. I worry that the car is way to small for the likely number of interested users, and the heat from the propulsion has no way to escape.
For example, I'm not a fan of the Hyperloop concept, as it seems too rigid (in many ways) for today's mass transport needs and costs. I worry that the car is way to small for the likely number of interested users, and the heat from the propulsion has no way to escape.
6
I guess I never grew up. I've been inventing innovative organizations and achieving uncommon outcomes, it seems, forever -- even now, in my seventh decade. Such histories are common among my friends, regardless of age. Perhaps we self-select on having serial innovators as friends and colleagues. I would argue that creativity is innate, but tolerance of creative acts and expressions varies by social order and historical moment. Undoubtedly some individuals have been trained by their circumstances (including family aspirations or lack thereof) to avoid invention and innovation; others are disciplined in school, social organizations, or the workplace. Wherever this dampening occurs, innovation and creativity suffer. If one has never suffered this phenomenon and retains the fortitude to buck current trends, then there's no reason to be less innovative as one ages.
(Though trained as a social scientist as well as a pragmatic achiever -- or maybe, because of it -- I disdain "science" that broadly generalizes from tests constructed to suit researchers' means, methodologies, and often sought-after outcomes. Unreal situations substitute for real people's real experiences outside the laboratory. The research resulting in this article struck me as such.)
(Though trained as a social scientist as well as a pragmatic achiever -- or maybe, because of it -- I disdain "science" that broadly generalizes from tests constructed to suit researchers' means, methodologies, and often sought-after outcomes. Unreal situations substitute for real people's real experiences outside the laboratory. The research resulting in this article struck me as such.)
3
Sorry,
The only difference looks to me is: Adults know to eliminate impractical or farcical options.
In these examples children are not being creative, they are merely showing off their lack of experience and naiveté.
What good is "creativity" if it is not bounded with the realms of reason?
OK, some adults are not creative. Perhaps this is better explained by Maslov's hierarchy of needs and being stopped before attaining the highest rung?
The only difference looks to me is: Adults know to eliminate impractical or farcical options.
In these examples children are not being creative, they are merely showing off their lack of experience and naiveté.
What good is "creativity" if it is not bounded with the realms of reason?
OK, some adults are not creative. Perhaps this is better explained by Maslov's hierarchy of needs and being stopped before attaining the highest rung?
9
Maslow'.
3
Put another way, as one ages, one stops questioning things. One also learns that ingenuity often is not seen as a positive thing, but as a negative. God forbid one cries for a more efficient workplace! (Academia, I am thinking of you -- any University wishing to save some bucks, give me a call; I'll clean house, baby, and turn Tenure into what it should be: a stick by which one is measured, or booted out the door...but I digress).
But again, we get stuck in a rut. I have recently gone back to school, studying fine art. The other side of my brain has taken over, and let me just say that in my mid-50s, I have found something close to Bliss (noting that my wife is Actual Bliss, of course, and certainly not one of those academics of which I was speaking above).
So, turn on, tune in, drop out....but since most of you are probably already on meds, stick to prune juice. But buy some nice pastels or charcoal, and fill up the walls in your house. Get out of the box; get out of the rut.
And vote American. Not Republican; not Democrat. American.
That means: for the people. All of us.
(And tax the rich. It is only fair since their profits are from the sweat of our ba, uh, backs. Yeah, backs.)
But again, we get stuck in a rut. I have recently gone back to school, studying fine art. The other side of my brain has taken over, and let me just say that in my mid-50s, I have found something close to Bliss (noting that my wife is Actual Bliss, of course, and certainly not one of those academics of which I was speaking above).
So, turn on, tune in, drop out....but since most of you are probably already on meds, stick to prune juice. But buy some nice pastels or charcoal, and fill up the walls in your house. Get out of the box; get out of the rut.
And vote American. Not Republican; not Democrat. American.
That means: for the people. All of us.
(And tax the rich. It is only fair since their profits are from the sweat of our ba, uh, backs. Yeah, backs.)
2
Is this a discovery? Wow, who could've known?
One could remain a life-long student, even a preschooler. And ,that is possible.
One needs to learn to appropriately change the composition of 'Exploitation and Exploration' as one ages. Mastering the art, which can be scietifically acquired -:), to always explore all possibilities and based on the experienced gain quickly throw those not-applicable ones away, can get one there. Keeping a biological mind young at any age is possible if practiced.
One needs to learn to appropriately change the composition of 'Exploitation and Exploration' as one ages. Mastering the art, which can be scietifically acquired -:), to always explore all possibilities and based on the experienced gain quickly throw those not-applicable ones away, can get one there. Keeping a biological mind young at any age is possible if practiced.
To maintain a creative mindset, you have to be willing to fail and make mistakes. There is nothing binary about creative solutions. Unfortunately, the need to have "the right" answer is often drilled into everyone in school, church, etc. There is security in thinking there is one answer to a question or solution to a problem. Creative people have the courage to be wrong and the discipline to keep working on solutions until they, not others, are satisfied. It's radical and is a way of walking in the world that can, and should, defy age.
6
Jerry Lewis has just died at 91. Described as a defining figure of American entertainment in the 20th century, he was much applauded by the French and a draw for their children. When visiting Paris, there were two choices on T.V.: a Jerry Lewis comedy act for the young at heart, and farmers going to market to find a wife. Whether one enjoyed his wit, he is a fine example of a creative-minded icon.
This is a very cool article, I didn't know the answer to this question until I read this article which is full of interesting facts. The scenarios they presented to the participants were explained with lots of creative ideas. I now know that the reason of younger children being more creative than older adults is due to the fact that as people age, they get sense of more logical features and explanations of the world around them, which leads to less creative ideas.
1
Suggest you visit the David Hockney Retrospective. Of course one artist in his 80's doing such fabulous work is anecdotal, but as many others have said, this article seems off-base.
2
Our brains are expert inference machines and our accumulating knowledge gives us more and more context to produce explanations for the realities we perceive. When we come up with an explanation we test it against our internal database of how the world works. We should get better and better with age, but unfortunately less adorable and more practical.
Social issues are particularly acute during adolescence, so it makes sense teens would see many things through a social lens.
It seems to me these processes are different from pure creativity. Coming up with ten explanations or possible solutions for a problem would likely demand some creativity. There are actually formal approaches to creativity described by academics. Edward de Bono developed lateral thinking tools such as brainstorming, random input, and provocation.
The authors' study looks at how people of different ages come up with single explanations for a set of facts. It looks at how 'creative' the responses are. But I would argue it doesn't formally challenge or test people's creative abilities. I do think we get more set in our ways with age, and less willing to explore alternatives. And it's also true that most scientific breakthroughs seem to come from younger people. I'm just not sure this study proved older people have any less creative powers than younger people.
Social issues are particularly acute during adolescence, so it makes sense teens would see many things through a social lens.
It seems to me these processes are different from pure creativity. Coming up with ten explanations or possible solutions for a problem would likely demand some creativity. There are actually formal approaches to creativity described by academics. Edward de Bono developed lateral thinking tools such as brainstorming, random input, and provocation.
The authors' study looks at how people of different ages come up with single explanations for a set of facts. It looks at how 'creative' the responses are. But I would argue it doesn't formally challenge or test people's creative abilities. I do think we get more set in our ways with age, and less willing to explore alternatives. And it's also true that most scientific breakthroughs seem to come from younger people. I'm just not sure this study proved older people have any less creative powers than younger people.
1
Adults need to listen to, consider and exploit the ideas of their younger generations as well as their older generations. We humans will not progress to further enlightenment unless everyone around us are heard and appreciated.
1
Sounds a little pat to me.
"Kids Say the Darndest Things."
A mid 1950's TV show hosted by Art Linkletter, where Art would ask a group of young kids questions such as he asked my best friend Buzzy, 8 years old.
Question: Buzzy, what do you think matrimony is?
Buzzy thought about this for a long moment and finally said:
Art, I think it is a certain kind of superstition.
Well it was a live audience and the place went crazy, even I thought it was hilarious.
Buzzy went on to become a marriage counselor, well not really........that would have been creative.
A mid 1950's TV show hosted by Art Linkletter, where Art would ask a group of young kids questions such as he asked my best friend Buzzy, 8 years old.
Question: Buzzy, what do you think matrimony is?
Buzzy thought about this for a long moment and finally said:
Art, I think it is a certain kind of superstition.
Well it was a live audience and the place went crazy, even I thought it was hilarious.
Buzzy went on to become a marriage counselor, well not really........that would have been creative.
2
The researchers were not creative in their experiments, and their conclusions contradict existing evidence. By observing creative people, one draws the opposite conclusion: creativity improves with knowledge, experience and age (sometimes with the exception of advanced age). Look at Mozart, Mendelssohn, Brahms and Beethoven, or Thomas Edson and Steve Jobs, or Henry James and Willa Cather, or Georgia O'keffe. Although Einstein was young when he developed his theories of relativity, he was by no means a child.
2
Time and energy may be a factor. The young are full of both. The older you are the less you have of each. One then must choose whether to explore or exploit in a stage of life that offers diminishing options depending on one's circumstances.
One observation I would consider; that our market economy and its attendant business models tend frustrate the exploratory in favor of the exploitative. In business and in employment, it is the existing methodologies that are preferred over the experimental which may not see instantly verifiable results. It is the exception that proves the rule when one finds an innovative company disrupting a market. The older conservative approaches may find themselves outclassed, as with brick and mortar vs online shopping.
In business, creativity may not be immediately profitable and therefore disposable when quarterly profits are the driving metric. This may have consequences down the road. When the U.S. made its conservative turn in the 80's it may have laid the foundations for our current political and economic problems, by eschewing exploration for exploitation, leaving no one, in a position to move things along, with any clue as to how to solve problems that weren't there thirty years ago.
Why is it that, for some people, the only solution for everything is tax cuts?
One observation I would consider; that our market economy and its attendant business models tend frustrate the exploratory in favor of the exploitative. In business and in employment, it is the existing methodologies that are preferred over the experimental which may not see instantly verifiable results. It is the exception that proves the rule when one finds an innovative company disrupting a market. The older conservative approaches may find themselves outclassed, as with brick and mortar vs online shopping.
In business, creativity may not be immediately profitable and therefore disposable when quarterly profits are the driving metric. This may have consequences down the road. When the U.S. made its conservative turn in the 80's it may have laid the foundations for our current political and economic problems, by eschewing exploration for exploitation, leaving no one, in a position to move things along, with any clue as to how to solve problems that weren't there thirty years ago.
Why is it that, for some people, the only solution for everything is tax cuts?
3
Anyone claiming to know about "creativity" at any age is merely advertising how little they know.
I'm 75. I write more, and draw and paint more than I ever did. I also care less about the opinions of others, which is one of the true pleasures of age.
I'm 75. I write more, and draw and paint more than I ever did. I also care less about the opinions of others, which is one of the true pleasures of age.
9
This is not a measure of creativity per se. It is a description of pre-operational thinking -- the stuff that happens before a child's brain/experience have developed to the point where concrete and formal methods of thinking are even possible. That means rational thought isn't a functional thing yet. Magical thinking is the foundation upon which young children must find explanations for how things work -- like a vegetable theory of eternal youth. Does this mean logic is the destruction of creativity? I can not believe that. I'd look no further than the hard knocks of life and "we've" been working slowly but creatively on that problem for thousands of years with significant success. I would not put 4 year olds in charge of this project because the results would be as nonfunctional as not eating veggies. Put on Beethoven's 9th (written in his final years) and ask yourself if you prefer the whimsical delight of magic, or reverent respect, or perhaps even ... awe.
4
I decided to test the kid's creative hypothesis even though I like vegetables and grow them in my garden. I didn't eat any for a day. It didn't help.
1
As older adults, I think that we are set in our patterns. This doesn't mean that we can't be creative. Creativity is a skill. For those who didn't nurture the skill throughout their life will be more challenged with creativity later in life.
Can we do a study that controls for "schooling" ?
My feeling is that repeated exposure to mandatory, institutionalized schooling (private and public) may lead to diminished creativity (speaking as one who has felt to have been 'in recovery' from schooling for awhile).
How do home schooled children fare as adults on creativity ?
My feeling is that repeated exposure to mandatory, institutionalized schooling (private and public) may lead to diminished creativity (speaking as one who has felt to have been 'in recovery' from schooling for awhile).
How do home schooled children fare as adults on creativity ?
1
It's a swing and a miss on this one, boys. First, blatant ageism in both the hypothesis and the testing strategy. Also, there is no litmus for creativity, and you can't build it out of logical fallacy bricks. When neuroscience does advance to the point that we can truly test the assumption, you may understand why the commenters who actually are creative take opposition to your findings. Better luck next time.
4
Perhaps this is not a problem of aging, rather a problem with how we approach educating children from the time creative pre-schoolers transition into school. One of the first things we teach them is to sit still, except when teachers invite them to move. And to be quiet, except when called on. Class size is one key to this need to control the environment, and giving teachers tools to harness the creative noise and squirming that children must engage in is another: We know that movement, language and creativity are intertwined. The neuroscience on this is still in its early childhood stages. Let's hope the field stays creatively limber as it ages while benefitting from the wisdom of aging. We are engaged in a vicious cycle of perpetuating the culture of learning by adults who were schooled in it. In the meantime, how can we break out of this restrictive cycle? Just ask a kindergartner.
5
How would the authors explain this type of creativity?
"...Luther Strange — Ala. “President Trump is the greatest thing that’s happened to this country. I consider it a Biblical miracle that he’s there.”
"...Luther Strange — Ala. “President Trump is the greatest thing that’s happened to this country. I consider it a Biblical miracle that he’s there.”
Is it creativity that is being measured or playfulness? Perhaps another useful metric to consider would study a subject's reaction to comedy and how it changes over time. As a young person, I always thought the movie, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," was the pinnacle of comedic achievement. No longer. Three Stooges gags? Timeless. The films of Mel Brooks first discovered in young adulthood withstand all challenges of becoming sidelined.
Perhaps laughing at goofiness throughout one's life, often viewed as extending adolescence may also light up the "What if" centre of the mind.
Perhaps laughing at goofiness throughout one's life, often viewed as extending adolescence may also light up the "What if" centre of the mind.
14
My creativity has blossomed as I've aged. I've felt freer, with more understanding of myself and artistic process. I've just published a book of photographs at the age of 70.
The author of this article lacks creativity! :-)
The author of this article lacks creativity! :-)
7
The answer is obvious. Children are Bayesians, adults are frequentists. Which means children are better at calculating odds.
(Very humorously and not quite accurately: Bayesians re-calculate their odds based upon each incremental new piece of information, while frequentists don't.)
(Very humorously and not quite accurately: Bayesians re-calculate their odds based upon each incremental new piece of information, while frequentists don't.)
What happens to creativity as we age? Listen to Beethoven's first symphony. Listen to Beethoven's last symphony. Judge for yourself.
35
Larry J: Exactly. Not just Beethoven's last symphony, but his late string quartets. Liszt also became more inventive (I avoid the word "creative") in the works he wrote in his old age. Writers, too, often become more accomplished as they get older, and not just in fluency and descriptiveness, but in imagining complex characters. And in visual art, look at late Rembrandt compared to his earliest works, or Van Gogh and Gauguin, to cite two overexposed painters.
This experiment strikes me as a psychological experiment that draws far too sweeping - and perhaps incorrect - conclusions from limited data, as T. Carl has noted.
This experiment strikes me as a psychological experiment that draws far too sweeping - and perhaps incorrect - conclusions from limited data, as T. Carl has noted.
3
Don't we know this answer already?
Mainly its because We live in a culture that crushes imagination. You can study the when, the where and whys..but its always the same. The Western culture, as manifested in the US crushes the imagination in most of us as we age. Only strong willed artists, the truly creative types with an unquenchable need to create, stick it out and hold onto that "child-like" skill.
As we age, adults are constantly pounding us to "grow-up", stop being a child, act your age. ("but Mom, I am!?") And Boys get the, "Be a man!" order at an early age. Where "be a man" means anything from stop whining, crying or asking questions, to toughen up and don't show emotions.
Plus the mere act of learning stuff, starts to harden up those wild, childish brain pathways, exhibited in the dont eat vegetables logic. From teen-hood on you don't know you know that not eating veggies wont turn back the clock, you just do, and as such your brain doesn't make the connections.
This article however, begs another question. What is it with American adults and their obsession with not growing old? Month after month, there is some article in this tome and many others across the nation, bemoaning the aging process, and how someone (self-appointed non-aging expert) has come up with yet another means for Boomers (its truly a Boomer issue) to stay young!
All part of the "50 is the new 40," and Cougar (the age keeps lowering) mentality. Stop it already! Its...well its childish!
Mainly its because We live in a culture that crushes imagination. You can study the when, the where and whys..but its always the same. The Western culture, as manifested in the US crushes the imagination in most of us as we age. Only strong willed artists, the truly creative types with an unquenchable need to create, stick it out and hold onto that "child-like" skill.
As we age, adults are constantly pounding us to "grow-up", stop being a child, act your age. ("but Mom, I am!?") And Boys get the, "Be a man!" order at an early age. Where "be a man" means anything from stop whining, crying or asking questions, to toughen up and don't show emotions.
Plus the mere act of learning stuff, starts to harden up those wild, childish brain pathways, exhibited in the dont eat vegetables logic. From teen-hood on you don't know you know that not eating veggies wont turn back the clock, you just do, and as such your brain doesn't make the connections.
This article however, begs another question. What is it with American adults and their obsession with not growing old? Month after month, there is some article in this tome and many others across the nation, bemoaning the aging process, and how someone (self-appointed non-aging expert) has come up with yet another means for Boomers (its truly a Boomer issue) to stay young!
All part of the "50 is the new 40," and Cougar (the age keeps lowering) mentality. Stop it already! Its...well its childish!
1
This article is not what I thought it would be about. I thought it would be about "creativity," per the headline. Instead, it appears to address age-related approaches to problem-solving, which is not the same as "creativity." Why don't the authors try defining the term before they attempt to answer the question?
6
"Youth is wasted on the young".
--- proverb
specifically, spontaneous unstructured creativity, wasted like a river flowing unvexed into the sea.
The regimentation of schooling beats it out of them. They emerge obedient and sterile.
Dr. Robert J. Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist, lamented "there are children playing in the streets today who could solve some of my biggest physics problems because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago."
--- proverb
specifically, spontaneous unstructured creativity, wasted like a river flowing unvexed into the sea.
The regimentation of schooling beats it out of them. They emerge obedient and sterile.
Dr. Robert J. Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist, lamented "there are children playing in the streets today who could solve some of my biggest physics problems because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago."
10
I am a lawyer. My many years at the job have given me an in-depth understanding of the law. When I was young, I did not venture far afield in my arguments because I could only defend a narrow spectrum of views. Now, I am able to argue more creatively because I can better defend unconventional views. Experience creates a knowledge base that allows older folks to argue creatively. There aren't many eccentric five year olds. Eccentric 70 year olds are a dime a dozen.
11
I have made my entire living for the last 25 years as an artist. I feel more creative and liberated now than I did when I was younger. The ideas I have now take root in my life experience, education, and general knowledge of the world that I have accumulated. Creativity and skill come hand in hand, and life experience informs them both.
6
Creativity and beauty and all about civilized rule following – or not. Children have humility and are generally well grounded in parental love and free from civilized restraints beyond the family. As we age the rules of culture, religion, law, politics and economics create false pride that restricts our creative range of acceptable solutions through a kind of economic self-analysis. The smarter we are the more complex and logical the decision process becomes and the less creative the solution.
Computations are like artificial intelligence and are useful rather than creative or beautiful. The light machine can be easily lit by constant adjustment of all the switching permutations (boring computation) or simply lighting a match (Burning Man) without being restrained by the civilized rule of electric wiring and bulbs. As for Sally and Josie, no doubt the girls did not want to leave the well paved path (the only purely logical conclusion). Speculation about gender scenarios would be both more creative and dangerous in our mix up world.
Real creative and beauty rests on good and evil. Children are never evil and often quite good. This cannot be said about teens. Most adults have lost their ability to keep the good and avoid every kind of evil. We sometimes forget the evil of unintended consequences fooling ourselves into thinking some evil is OK because it is not intended. You wouldn't tell that to your child. Keep your eye on the good; and beauty and creativity will follow.
Computations are like artificial intelligence and are useful rather than creative or beautiful. The light machine can be easily lit by constant adjustment of all the switching permutations (boring computation) or simply lighting a match (Burning Man) without being restrained by the civilized rule of electric wiring and bulbs. As for Sally and Josie, no doubt the girls did not want to leave the well paved path (the only purely logical conclusion). Speculation about gender scenarios would be both more creative and dangerous in our mix up world.
Real creative and beauty rests on good and evil. Children are never evil and often quite good. This cannot be said about teens. Most adults have lost their ability to keep the good and avoid every kind of evil. We sometimes forget the evil of unintended consequences fooling ourselves into thinking some evil is OK because it is not intended. You wouldn't tell that to your child. Keep your eye on the good; and beauty and creativity will follow.
2
Further:
The notion of 'creativity' espoused in this article and in the' experiment' described is closer to mere whimsy.
If people confined in nursing homes gave answers identical to those offered by the 'creative' children, such statements would be considered evidence of dementia. (QV :the "stop eating vegetables" et. al.) The would be considered distressing, not cute or clever.
The notion of 'creativity' espoused in this article and in the' experiment' described is closer to mere whimsy.
If people confined in nursing homes gave answers identical to those offered by the 'creative' children, such statements would be considered evidence of dementia. (QV :the "stop eating vegetables" et. al.) The would be considered distressing, not cute or clever.
4
What would happen in an experiment where all the participants understood that their solutions would (a) be implemented in reality and (b) saw that implementation take place? The 'experiment' here is designed to affirm an assumption about the nature of 'creativity'
A deeper sense of pattern can emerge in later age, and there are many instances, even in the west, of unique and unanticipated artistic break throughs and formal innovations occurring in the last 10 years of life: Beethoven, Titian, Stravinsky, Bach, Matisse, Shakespeare, etc.
A deeper sense of pattern can emerge in later age, and there are many instances, even in the west, of unique and unanticipated artistic break throughs and formal innovations occurring in the last 10 years of life: Beethoven, Titian, Stravinsky, Bach, Matisse, Shakespeare, etc.
And my fave, Janacek, who didn't hit his stride until 50 and then wrote some of the world's greatest and most wildly creative operas and other works till his mid-seventies.
Problem that needed creativity to stop kids from playing on my lawn. "Get off my lawn!" Something I said at age 40. "Would you please get off my lawn?" is something I said at age 60. Nothing worked. At age 74 I took my leaf blower to them while yelling that I am crazy and next time I'll use my weed wacker. That worked and I was sort of proud of my ... of my .... creativity.
4
Simple problems or more complex problems? We can look at the clouds, feel the wind and temperature, and often predict whether it's going to rain, even more so if we can hear thunder. But the weather two days from now, not reliably without sophisticated instruments and weather maps, excepting long seasonably dry or rainy periods.
Now let's take the AIDS virus. Since the 50s, we know a lot about viruses, and since the 80s a lot about the AIDS virus. Why is there still no cure or vaccine for this virus? Is it because the basic research about this (and other) virus has yet to be done, or are we missing something about applying what we already know to a cure? We know, for example, that viral load has a lot to do with infection, the best chance being direct contact with the blood stream through needle sharing among addicts and the sexual practices of homosexual men in the West, and heterosexual dry sex in Africa; that this is an RNA coated virus with two copies of the virus per enclosed capsule; that once infection begins the virus can mutate rapidly around drug therapies meaning each individual infection can be its own genome; that some have natural immunity but not known whether this is hereditary or acquired; and more recently that some of the viral proteins are part of the human genome. All of this is important in targeting a cure, especially learning more about the basic reproduction of this RNA virus
(Space here in relating this to the author's, Age and Creativity)
Now let's take the AIDS virus. Since the 50s, we know a lot about viruses, and since the 80s a lot about the AIDS virus. Why is there still no cure or vaccine for this virus? Is it because the basic research about this (and other) virus has yet to be done, or are we missing something about applying what we already know to a cure? We know, for example, that viral load has a lot to do with infection, the best chance being direct contact with the blood stream through needle sharing among addicts and the sexual practices of homosexual men in the West, and heterosexual dry sex in Africa; that this is an RNA coated virus with two copies of the virus per enclosed capsule; that once infection begins the virus can mutate rapidly around drug therapies meaning each individual infection can be its own genome; that some have natural immunity but not known whether this is hereditary or acquired; and more recently that some of the viral proteins are part of the human genome. All of this is important in targeting a cure, especially learning more about the basic reproduction of this RNA virus
(Space here in relating this to the author's, Age and Creativity)
1
The paper's title is "Changes in cognitive flexibility and hypothesis search across human life history from childhood to adolescence to adulthood" and word "creativity" is not present in the paper's full text.
The subject seems to be "cognitive flexibility" rather then creativity but it does not make a good newspaper title!
The subject seems to be "cognitive flexibility" rather then creativity but it does not make a good newspaper title!
I found the article and experiments confusing. I must be an adult.
6
I thought it was confusing too. The article itself seems to say that a random, non-knowledge-based solution is preferable to experimentation and the scientific method. This is what we're fighting in our current anti-evidence, anti-science country. Knowledge and experience are actually beneficial to the advancement of the world. Ignorance is an anathema.
3
Diminution of curiousity is the beginning of death.
1
This reminds me of every conversation I have ever had with a psychologist. It starts off interesting and leads nowhere.
2
To answer the question directly; it's afraid to be laid off in middle age.
21
Complete ancdotal conjecture!
Maybe you guys are still in your exploration days -without a compass
You know any 12 year old scientists? Poets? No? Might be because real creativity as opposed to random thinking arises from mental order and discipline along with the magical thinking that exists in different orders of magnitude among sapiens.
Maybe you guys are still in your exploration days -without a compass
You know any 12 year old scientists? Poets? No? Might be because real creativity as opposed to random thinking arises from mental order and discipline along with the magical thinking that exists in different orders of magnitude among sapiens.
Don Quixote began to sally forth into the world to right all wrongs in his fifties and still tilts and windmills with me 400 years later.
2
At length the man perceives it die away
And fade into the light of common day.
Wordsworth
And fade into the light of common day.
Wordsworth
1
A message to Alison Gopnik and Tom Griffiths:
I wrote one of the earlier comments, which I hope you'll read.
Given the number of comments passionately opposing your conclusion, I hope you will do your research again. The notion that people 'become set in their ways' as they age is a cliche' not worthy of intelligent researchers. Au contraire: as women and men both protest, many people tend to feel liberated with age and free to say -- with energy and passion -- what they really feel, whatever it may be. In 1966 I was reluctant to oppose the war in Vietnam because JFK's remaining cabinet members supported it, but now you couldn't persuade me to support a new imperialist war no matter who wanted it. --- And don't think that this is just a generational thing: my 99-year-old mother feels the same way. -- **This feeling of liberation carries over into "creativity" (such a dull, hackneyed, jargony word; can you find another?) also, as so many people commenting on your piece have said. We old folk are all writing and painting and composing up a storm.
I urge you: do new research. --And because hormones have much to do with creative energy, do a study just with women. I strongly suspect your results will be different.
I wrote one of the earlier comments, which I hope you'll read.
Given the number of comments passionately opposing your conclusion, I hope you will do your research again. The notion that people 'become set in their ways' as they age is a cliche' not worthy of intelligent researchers. Au contraire: as women and men both protest, many people tend to feel liberated with age and free to say -- with energy and passion -- what they really feel, whatever it may be. In 1966 I was reluctant to oppose the war in Vietnam because JFK's remaining cabinet members supported it, but now you couldn't persuade me to support a new imperialist war no matter who wanted it. --- And don't think that this is just a generational thing: my 99-year-old mother feels the same way. -- **This feeling of liberation carries over into "creativity" (such a dull, hackneyed, jargony word; can you find another?) also, as so many people commenting on your piece have said. We old folk are all writing and painting and composing up a storm.
I urge you: do new research. --And because hormones have much to do with creative energy, do a study just with women. I strongly suspect your results will be different.
3
I've painted canvas- walls-textiles etc for over 50 yrs and at 80 am painting over 300 garments --8 to 20 paintings-6 five day art classes--10 day private classes to 2 students this year ---Picasso said when inspiration comes - you better be working
1
By the standards of this experiment, pathological liars are highly creative :-)
My keys are in the refrigerator.
3
Thanks for the out loud laugh!
I haven't even read this piece yet, but the illustration is wonderful. Gets me thinking about some kind of pre-reading inference activity for my students in Trenton, NJ.
But then, I wonder, how do my kids - not a Caucasian among them - relate to or connect with this 1920s angelic little boy/girl (and the dad [I assume] looks like he's from a different century) with God's blue birds flying around her/his caged head. And also, I wonder why am I even conscious of or concerned with the race depicted in an illustration when I am using it in as part of a reflect and write activity for my high school students? Who happen to be black, or Hispanic.
Ahh. Well, I will read this and get back to y'all if I have anything to add. Good night - thank you New York Times. Keep it up.
But then, I wonder, how do my kids - not a Caucasian among them - relate to or connect with this 1920s angelic little boy/girl (and the dad [I assume] looks like he's from a different century) with God's blue birds flying around her/his caged head. And also, I wonder why am I even conscious of or concerned with the race depicted in an illustration when I am using it in as part of a reflect and write activity for my high school students? Who happen to be black, or Hispanic.
Ahh. Well, I will read this and get back to y'all if I have anything to add. Good night - thank you New York Times. Keep it up.
1
They say that 60 is the new 70. But lets get real.
Ok 50 is the new 70. that is better, moving in the right direction
Some claim the 40 is the new 70. This is a good idea, but still lacks vision
30 is the new 70. Certainly! I will take that, but why stop here?
21 is the new 70. Come on , 21 year olds are already in decline
18 is the new 70, I say
But that is outrageous, impossible, delusional. I must be a crazy fool.
Not.
Last winter I trained for 6 months with a personal trainer at a gym that specializes in the training of young, 14 to 18 year old athletes. Goal: give them improved basics skills to help any sport. Arron, my trainer, trained a figure skater, a football player, a skier and a rugby player. The later two kids I trained with.
OK, FINE.
So you can outplay elite 17 year olds at the thing they are good at: Acceleration and fast running cuts.
BIG DEAL
You will get hurt - you cant possible do that very long.
NOPE.
Did not get hurt, and after hiking to Mystic Island Lake solo, a hard core classic Colorado back pack trip, with treacherous steep rocks, stream jumps with a full pack, and slippery wet logs in the rain, I was not one bit sore, and could turn around and do it again. Btw I have 12 pages of short stories posted - just titles. Immediately viewed by hundreds of fans.
Ok 50 is the new 70. that is better, moving in the right direction
Some claim the 40 is the new 70. This is a good idea, but still lacks vision
30 is the new 70. Certainly! I will take that, but why stop here?
21 is the new 70. Come on , 21 year olds are already in decline
18 is the new 70, I say
But that is outrageous, impossible, delusional. I must be a crazy fool.
Not.
Last winter I trained for 6 months with a personal trainer at a gym that specializes in the training of young, 14 to 18 year old athletes. Goal: give them improved basics skills to help any sport. Arron, my trainer, trained a figure skater, a football player, a skier and a rugby player. The later two kids I trained with.
OK, FINE.
So you can outplay elite 17 year olds at the thing they are good at: Acceleration and fast running cuts.
BIG DEAL
You will get hurt - you cant possible do that very long.
NOPE.
Did not get hurt, and after hiking to Mystic Island Lake solo, a hard core classic Colorado back pack trip, with treacherous steep rocks, stream jumps with a full pack, and slippery wet logs in the rain, I was not one bit sore, and could turn around and do it again. Btw I have 12 pages of short stories posted - just titles. Immediately viewed by hundreds of fans.
Just. Play. Hold onto that and be creative all your life.
1
The conclusion presumes a safe, comfortable childhood. Yet children in war zones continue to be imaginative, and, creative. Like so many theories about human development, this is merely a shallow projection of modern cultural values. "You've had your fun, now time to be a man!"
2
Sorry, 'creativity' is a social construct, not a useful term for assessing cognitive processes. I once heard creativity defined as (1) something claimed by parents (grandparents?) for their children when laboring under the delusion that the kids' feces have no odor, or (2) something artist-cowards modestly claim for themselves when they lack to courage to call themselves geniuses. In the same conversation, about genius (again, in the artistic context) it was said, if you possess genius, show, don't tell. Go big, or go home, and leave the kids out of it.
I don't consider the trait described here as creativity. It is a narrow and as with the example of no vegetables solution, lacking in discrimination subset of creativity.
It does not surprise me with the indiscriminate praise of children for accomplishments no more than breathing.
Creativity is a skill that lrows stronger and accurate with practice. Creativity decreases not because we lose the ability but because it is suppressed to conform.
People think they can't draw or sing because beginning with school suddenly quality judgement becomes part of the picture and in a way that shuts down creative possibility rather than learning to harness opportunity to expand and grow. If told enough time that stick figures with out five fingers are wrong, a person will stop learning to draw. If told enough times they waver from the tune or are off pitch, they will stop singing altogether.
Instead, asking what was meant by the creative act and accessing how it contributes or not to the intent should be the question. A stick figure with no mouth for instance may be incomplete or speak to the artist's life experience.
A seasoned artist, or creative thinking person in say finance who can do amazing things with algorithms is no less creative than a child who thinks vegetables will keep someone from aging, but they are more skilled at shooting their creative arrows at their intended target's bullseye.
Instead, be concerned with what we do to shut down creativity for convenience.
It does not surprise me with the indiscriminate praise of children for accomplishments no more than breathing.
Creativity is a skill that lrows stronger and accurate with practice. Creativity decreases not because we lose the ability but because it is suppressed to conform.
People think they can't draw or sing because beginning with school suddenly quality judgement becomes part of the picture and in a way that shuts down creative possibility rather than learning to harness opportunity to expand and grow. If told enough time that stick figures with out five fingers are wrong, a person will stop learning to draw. If told enough times they waver from the tune or are off pitch, they will stop singing altogether.
Instead, asking what was meant by the creative act and accessing how it contributes or not to the intent should be the question. A stick figure with no mouth for instance may be incomplete or speak to the artist's life experience.
A seasoned artist, or creative thinking person in say finance who can do amazing things with algorithms is no less creative than a child who thinks vegetables will keep someone from aging, but they are more skilled at shooting their creative arrows at their intended target's bullseye.
Instead, be concerned with what we do to shut down creativity for convenience.
2
Perhaps but this creative essay reminded this reader to eat something green for dinner and not a handful of the cat's kibble by mistake. My husband was a musician and when I wanted to make him laugh, I would sing. Invited by the neighbors to celebrate their daughter's graduation, it was a jazzy event and for fun, off the cuff, I gave them a rendition of 'La Vie en Rose' or Life is Pink, the easiest and hardest song in the world, easy to imitate but only the Sparrow, Edith Piaf, could do it justice, and if I had been a child, my face would have been covered in hives.
There is such a thing as 'Creative Thinking', which requires some originality and imagination. You cannot cheat at chess a parent once told me, this wood pusher. Let's have more comments, and as for children being lambs, mentioned by another participant in this thread, a valuable portrait of an ancestor was used by his young nephew as a bullseye.
There is such a thing as 'Creative Thinking', which requires some originality and imagination. You cannot cheat at chess a parent once told me, this wood pusher. Let's have more comments, and as for children being lambs, mentioned by another participant in this thread, a valuable portrait of an ancestor was used by his young nephew as a bullseye.
1
I have many more creative ideas the older I get! The other day I had this great idea for a really funny advertising campaign for toothpaste. The problem is, I can't remember what it was.
4
I had asked about the authors' definition of creativity. I am reading alexgri's comment, and can't help think of the many older humans who had amazing bursts of creativity (OK, perhaps I should define mine, eh?) at a very ripe age - Picasso, Matisse are but 2 that come to mind. These two started producing art as unencumbered by conventions/previous work as anything we've seen. Picasso's (highly erotic) bull sketches, Matisse's (nearly blind) cutouts. These, and many many other examples, contradict what the authors seem to have concluded, and, above all, make Marion Foyelle's illustration look a bit sad and disrespectful to me. Disclosure: I'm 63.
This article is completely wrong, relies on a very limited number of subjects and only two tests. It doesn't warrant any conclusions by statistical analysis and has never been duplicated for verification. It stands as proof that psychology is still at the stage of being an art and not a science. Keep trying though and in 100 years or so you may be actually able to cure the mentally ill.
Not me. I was a pleaser as a kid: I'd give the answers my teachers/parents wanted, as an adolescent I gave the answers my friends wanted. Now I'm free to answer the question any way I want. If anything, life has taught me there are endless ways to solve a problem. The only failure in life is the failure of the imagination.
43
Thank you! After reading this I'm so glad I made the decision never to grow up!
Another case of self-promotion portraying itself as a general interest NY Times article. If your work is so important, then someone else should have written about it. The readership is not capably of evaluating the science and depends on objective expert critiques to learn about scientific issues. Using the general media to publicize ones own research is shameful.
Interesting that Ms. Gopnik and the Gopnik are the same. Does the name derive from the culture? Or, the culture derive from the name?
I firmly believe that infants are born fully enlightened and life complicates the spirit and leads to our samsara.
I recall talking with my kids (as we all should) of a big picture (of the world) when they were 4 or 5. My son asked quite sincerely (as all 4 and 5 year olds do): "Is it as big as this whole _philosophy_?? Stunning.
Now, without criticizing me for vagueness and arbitrariness - the specific subject is irrelevant - consider a five year old's use of the word philosophy. Was he simply talking about our conversation at that time (likely)? Or, something else? I can't begin to know what he was thinking, but it made extraordinary, intuitive sense to me in my mid-thirties.
He's now an engineer on the west coast, still finding joy in life!
I firmly believe that infants are born fully enlightened and life complicates the spirit and leads to our samsara.
I recall talking with my kids (as we all should) of a big picture (of the world) when they were 4 or 5. My son asked quite sincerely (as all 4 and 5 year olds do): "Is it as big as this whole _philosophy_?? Stunning.
Now, without criticizing me for vagueness and arbitrariness - the specific subject is irrelevant - consider a five year old's use of the word philosophy. Was he simply talking about our conversation at that time (likely)? Or, something else? I can't begin to know what he was thinking, but it made extraordinary, intuitive sense to me in my mid-thirties.
He's now an engineer on the west coast, still finding joy in life!
This is "Science" . . . . NOT so FAST !
I appear to be in complete disagreement with the authors - however, they do bring up a very interesting trait of humans.
Sorry, a 4 year old coming up with "don't eat vegetables" is not a function of creativity - it is solely based on a very limited knowledge of what's real - btw - this is just fine for 4 !
It is reasonable to realize that creativity for the very young IS a function of exploration - "The hard drives are nearly empty and there's an entire world to learn about.
The "use" what is used as applied creativity - IS Exploitative of learned knowledge.
On through adolescence, the art of exploration is still very strong - and the art of creative exploitation is growing.
Then many come to a fork in the road - WORK - either in a creative field or a "system" of many protocols.
Sadly, for many adults, their creativity is not merely lost - - "It's Crushed" by the rigors of "life".
There simply is too much "responsibility" to meet the requirements of many jobs - and being "creative" may not be favorably looked upon.
For those who enter creative fields, things go well while drawing on the magical well of creativity -
UNTIL -
The well runs dry - - and it does for every creative -
We have all heard of "writers block" and every other creative field has their own descriptors of a dry well.
The thing is, Creativity, well yes - 'magical' - is actually a SKILL !
Anyone at any age can improve this skill !
I appear to be in complete disagreement with the authors - however, they do bring up a very interesting trait of humans.
Sorry, a 4 year old coming up with "don't eat vegetables" is not a function of creativity - it is solely based on a very limited knowledge of what's real - btw - this is just fine for 4 !
It is reasonable to realize that creativity for the very young IS a function of exploration - "The hard drives are nearly empty and there's an entire world to learn about.
The "use" what is used as applied creativity - IS Exploitative of learned knowledge.
On through adolescence, the art of exploration is still very strong - and the art of creative exploitation is growing.
Then many come to a fork in the road - WORK - either in a creative field or a "system" of many protocols.
Sadly, for many adults, their creativity is not merely lost - - "It's Crushed" by the rigors of "life".
There simply is too much "responsibility" to meet the requirements of many jobs - and being "creative" may not be favorably looked upon.
For those who enter creative fields, things go well while drawing on the magical well of creativity -
UNTIL -
The well runs dry - - and it does for every creative -
We have all heard of "writers block" and every other creative field has their own descriptors of a dry well.
The thing is, Creativity, well yes - 'magical' - is actually a SKILL !
Anyone at any age can improve this skill !
1
If youth is so invariably creative, how come everywhere I go in public I hear the "breakout" popular music of my youth forty to fifty years ago, itself derived from plundering even older African-American musical creativity, still playing? Do I need to comment on younger generations' enthusiasm for remixing and musical mashups? Try googling "led zeppelin remix" and then discourse upon youth and creativity. Creativity is quite a bit more complex than the biological variable this article would make it.
I admit readily that I am not going to take the time to study the original paper but I like others will offer an anecdotal view based on my own experience. In doing so I say things very much like those presented by Patricia, Pasadena, top Readers' Pick. She does not tell us her age.
I can claim that I have become more creative in my 80s, at least in one way, but only if I had been a member of a longitudinal study like the Framingham, could researchers judge if my claim is valid.
In Sweden I work for researchers who scoff at American researchers' use of "race" as a variable as does Dorothy Roberts, U Penn Prof and author of "Fatal Invention..." a book that changed my life.
So I have become creative by offering 100s of comments asking readers and OpEd writers why they are so committed to a belief in "races" and so committed to the preservation of the USCB system, archaic and with racism as its foundation.
Readers, many of them older, cannot imagine doing away with this system, and seem never to have read its most important proponent, Kenneth Prewitt, former USCB director in his book "What Is Your Race?..."
So I see these readers as locked in stereotypical commitment to the old. Why not be a bit creative and consider the new? What would a white nationalist do if the US no longer gave him a race box.
I end by supporting Patricia in her statement that researchers should not be presenting their own work here in OpEd land.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
I can claim that I have become more creative in my 80s, at least in one way, but only if I had been a member of a longitudinal study like the Framingham, could researchers judge if my claim is valid.
In Sweden I work for researchers who scoff at American researchers' use of "race" as a variable as does Dorothy Roberts, U Penn Prof and author of "Fatal Invention..." a book that changed my life.
So I have become creative by offering 100s of comments asking readers and OpEd writers why they are so committed to a belief in "races" and so committed to the preservation of the USCB system, archaic and with racism as its foundation.
Readers, many of them older, cannot imagine doing away with this system, and seem never to have read its most important proponent, Kenneth Prewitt, former USCB director in his book "What Is Your Race?..."
So I see these readers as locked in stereotypical commitment to the old. Why not be a bit creative and consider the new? What would a white nationalist do if the US no longer gave him a race box.
I end by supporting Patricia in her statement that researchers should not be presenting their own work here in OpEd land.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
@ myself - My comment above asks what a white nationalist might do if the USCB no longer gave him a white race box to check. If you are interested in reading the details visit my comment @ http://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/19/opinion/trump-nazism-republican-party-...
a Times Pick, presently with a number of recommends, and 3 replies. I would appreciate it if anyone would visit and reply.
Thanks in advance.
Larry L.
a Times Pick, presently with a number of recommends, and 3 replies. I would appreciate it if anyone would visit and reply.
Thanks in advance.
Larry L.
If you just look at children and adults you can see it. Children are better looking, alive. Adults show the wear and tear.
Some of this is accumulation and other stuff is limiting. It is medical and physical and some of it is just character, For one thing fear of falling on the ground is an adult vice. Kids more so just fall and get up, it is not so precarious to fall and just roll or just get up. Adult treat falling as well, falling.
If you will allow me a divergence...our social and financial and political life has currently a disease of too much adult and not enough young people. Even our young are poisoned by too much adult stink in the air.
Trump and Hillary were really very un-creative and dull to be a model for the young. Trump was and is a model for a weird fake kind of success that has nothing creative or alive in it. Look at Congress. We need a bunch of 20 year old kids to make the nations mistakes not dinosaurs like McConnell and Pelosi.
Some of this is accumulation and other stuff is limiting. It is medical and physical and some of it is just character, For one thing fear of falling on the ground is an adult vice. Kids more so just fall and get up, it is not so precarious to fall and just roll or just get up. Adult treat falling as well, falling.
If you will allow me a divergence...our social and financial and political life has currently a disease of too much adult and not enough young people. Even our young are poisoned by too much adult stink in the air.
Trump and Hillary were really very un-creative and dull to be a model for the young. Trump was and is a model for a weird fake kind of success that has nothing creative or alive in it. Look at Congress. We need a bunch of 20 year old kids to make the nations mistakes not dinosaurs like McConnell and Pelosi.
it seems the authors of this study have already defined creativity before they have even figured out what it is.
1
"In these circles is elaborated a mock-admiration of the artist as a sort of superannuated infant, and it is the nightmare of the poet or the artist to find himself wandering between the grim grey lines of the Philistines and the ramshackle emplacements of Bohemia. If he ceases to believe in the validity of his insight--the truth of what he is saying--he becomes the casualty, the only possibly casualty, of that engagement. Philistia and Bohemia, never endangered by the contest, remain precisely what they were. This is the Bohemia that churns and worries the idea of the poet-not-of-this-world, the dissociated poet, the ghostly bard. If the poet is an island, this is the sea which most lovingly and intimately grinds him to sand."
George Oppen, from "The Mind's Own Place" (1960 something)
George Oppen, from "The Mind's Own Place" (1960 something)
1
Hogwash. I have found that, barring old timers' disease, that my creative thoughts stem from a lot of wisdom that has come about through age. I feel and act creatively often; of course there are those times when my experience is a hindrance, but that prevents serious problems from occurring too. I have in my mind new creative ideas I wish I had more time to flush out - I fully believe I could do a PhD if I had the funds. Not dead yet. DJM
2
This anecdote a friend told me about his daughter has always stayed with me:
When his daughter was very young, she was eager to dress herself, and not be dressed by her mother or father. One day she proudly showed up at breakfast and announced that that morning she had dressed herself, head to toe.
Her dad looked down at her feet and said gently, "Aw, honey, you put your shoes on the wrong feet."
"But dad," she said, "these are the only feet I have."
When his daughter was very young, she was eager to dress herself, and not be dressed by her mother or father. One day she proudly showed up at breakfast and announced that that morning she had dressed herself, head to toe.
Her dad looked down at her feet and said gently, "Aw, honey, you put your shoes on the wrong feet."
"But dad," she said, "these are the only feet I have."
2
"The logic was ingenious: Eating vegetables turns children into big strong adults, so not eating vegetables should reverse the process." your authors write.
Here we see once more evidence for the well know fact that my grandchildren are geniuses, yours show some measure of reversion to the mean, and theirs have sadly been abused while all the while being fed the chemicals which have destroyed their brains.
There is nothing "ingenious" about this logic. It is merely logic without the logic part. The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget once adumbrated this with his famous apothegm "Hunh? Wass?" an observation so powerful that I am going to Google up "adumbrate" to find out what it means.
Here we see once more evidence for the well know fact that my grandchildren are geniuses, yours show some measure of reversion to the mean, and theirs have sadly been abused while all the while being fed the chemicals which have destroyed their brains.
There is nothing "ingenious" about this logic. It is merely logic without the logic part. The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget once adumbrated this with his famous apothegm "Hunh? Wass?" an observation so powerful that I am going to Google up "adumbrate" to find out what it means.
1
From one at 64-
Nothing diminishes creativity as we age except not taking the time to just let yourself feel the flow.
Look, listen and have no fear to feel the wonder and challenge of it all ....
Nothing diminishes creativity as we age except not taking the time to just let yourself feel the flow.
Look, listen and have no fear to feel the wonder and challenge of it all ....
3
Society works very hard to put creativity ina box with thick tape sealing it. I was born curious and refused to let anyone quell my desire. I am a ten year old boy trapped in a 60 yr old woman's body. I refuse to let the social expectation of acting mature and being a grown up stop me from 'thinking outside of afire-mentioned box'.. Get down on the floor and play. Roll down a hill. Squeeze all the noisy toys at once and giggle when you are stared at. Life is short. Get out of the. Ix, the lunes and open your eyes. Creativity isfluttering all around you.
1
An issue of the Sunday Review that was 3/4 race, even the who not to feel sorry for in the opioid crisis. I get it, Charlottesville was only a week ago, and it isn't cool to criticize the people who did Las Ramblas. But what happens when you justify Silicon Valley's most pernicious and pervasive bigotry -- that against anyone who got older with time? You get a spot in PNAS.
Professors lose their creativity because they get tenure. Average people lose their creativity because they learn to love routine. Young people lose their creativity because they become addicted to Silicon Valley's latest poison.
But coming up with ways to justify average ages in the 20s in the corporations big and small in the Valley? That's just cutting age science.
Professors lose their creativity because they get tenure. Average people lose their creativity because they learn to love routine. Young people lose their creativity because they become addicted to Silicon Valley's latest poison.
But coming up with ways to justify average ages in the 20s in the corporations big and small in the Valley? That's just cutting age science.
this seems a bit silly. inventors in the modern and and throughout history have been adults. Adults know what does not work. Drugs is a good example. The young are vulnerable because they want to experiment and ignore the evidence that says drugs kill. Conventional thinking is usually right thinking. Fantasy thinking leads to drugs and worse. We make the worst mistakes of our lives when we are young and spend the rest of our lives fixing things. Africans and other truly advanced cultures revere the old for our knowledge. Only in America does fanciful fact-less thinking get raised to a virtue...all cause you want to use and mess up somebody else's children.
We've all seen or been that kid who comes up with a Rube Goldberg invention...pillow forts to defend, space ships that somehow involve shoving every single possession up against the bedroom window, etc. It's creative, though useless. Or rather, imaginative if non-functional.
Most original artists are able to tap back to this...think of Christo, early break-dance pioneers, composers, you name it. Because previous realities are a fence to be broken.
Alas, for 80% of life as an adult, the fences of reality exist for a reason, and improve life by saving time and effort. I bet Christo hires some very smart accountants to manage the funding of his works, and do his taxes. As does Adele.
Most original artists are able to tap back to this...think of Christo, early break-dance pioneers, composers, you name it. Because previous realities are a fence to be broken.
Alas, for 80% of life as an adult, the fences of reality exist for a reason, and improve life by saving time and effort. I bet Christo hires some very smart accountants to manage the funding of his works, and do his taxes. As does Adele.
Not to sound defensive, but as an older guy (66) I think this piece paints its topic with too broad a brush. True, some of our greatest minds -- Einstein, for example -- did their most creative work at a young age. Both others have scaled the heights well into geezerdom. Frank Lloyd Wright was no spring chicken when he designed the Guggenheim. Saul Bellow wrote Ravelstein in his eighties.
One of the symptoms of adulthood may be a tendency to over-think matters great and small.. in my youth, we called it the Philosopher's Disease. "Stern and earnest realities" have never been exclusively reserved for grown-ups.
From the time we are born, we are taught to conform often placing our creativity in the background. Those who did not and had the raw talent are the geniuses, though at the time they may have been considered dismal failures.... Da Vinci, Einstein, Van Gogh and modern day geniuses such as Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking. Steven Spielberg, when he was a kid, exploded some red fruit in a pressure cooker so that he could get fake blood for an amateur movie he was making. His mother focused more on what he was doing rather than the mess. It paid off.
1
We don't need fancy-shmancy words like "exploitation" and "exploration" to answer this question.
Everyone knows that children are born as questions marks.
By the time they finish high school, they end up as periods.
When they leave college, they are exclamation marks.
Everyone knows that children are born as questions marks.
By the time they finish high school, they end up as periods.
When they leave college, they are exclamation marks.
1
From a scientific point of view, I’m not sure how this particular test of the creativity of six-year-olds versus adolescents and adults offers any meaningful conclusions.
What if, for example, a six-year-old hypothesizes that Josie does not approach the scooter because there may be a nasty wizard’s spell on the scooter? Or that the scooter ran over a rotten egg and a stink bug and a dead decaying walrus moments before, and now the scooter smells bad? Well, that’s adorable, but how then would a scientist interpret the creativity of the child’s answer? Is that answer a “creative” explanation? Certainly. Did older kids and adults hypothesize that colorfully? Probably not. Are the older kids and adults therefore less creative than the little ones?
It seems to me with a “test” that is this open to flexible interpretation, the results can be whatever the researchers say the results are. Or want them to be.
This kind of a test can indeed offer a conclusion that “creativity generally tend[s] to decline as we age.” But that conclusion is as imaginative as a dead decaying walrus lying in the road.
What if, for example, a six-year-old hypothesizes that Josie does not approach the scooter because there may be a nasty wizard’s spell on the scooter? Or that the scooter ran over a rotten egg and a stink bug and a dead decaying walrus moments before, and now the scooter smells bad? Well, that’s adorable, but how then would a scientist interpret the creativity of the child’s answer? Is that answer a “creative” explanation? Certainly. Did older kids and adults hypothesize that colorfully? Probably not. Are the older kids and adults therefore less creative than the little ones?
It seems to me with a “test” that is this open to flexible interpretation, the results can be whatever the researchers say the results are. Or want them to be.
This kind of a test can indeed offer a conclusion that “creativity generally tend[s] to decline as we age.” But that conclusion is as imaginative as a dead decaying walrus lying in the road.
1
"From the mouths of babes." Creative solutions from children aren't necessarily creative, but cute and humorous. An adult coming up with the same 'creative' solution would be rightly ignored for the rest of his once-promising career. Brainstorming sessions with people who toss in idiotic 'creative' solutions are painful to get through and shouldn't be encouraged.
If a child comes up with an idea you call them creative, if an adult came up with the same idea you'd call them stupid.
Doesn't that put an inherent bias in your methodology?
You're more likely to be creative when you first come across something, which is normally when you are young. There are many exceptions in scientific disciplines, like elementary particle physics, where the field is evolving rapidly and people, for example Stephen Hawking, have important insights throughout their career.
Doesn't that put an inherent bias in your methodology?
You're more likely to be creative when you first come across something, which is normally when you are young. There are many exceptions in scientific disciplines, like elementary particle physics, where the field is evolving rapidly and people, for example Stephen Hawking, have important insights throughout their career.
We "learn" too much as we age and cannot unlearn much of the barriers to creativity. Children are not afraid of being "wrong" and are not easily embarrassed. We also become emotionally fragile over time.
I forgot to add, "The Element" by Sir Ken Robinson is a must-read on this subject.
I guess I'm not alone think that. Look at all the musicians that wrote incredible songs in their early years, the fiction authors who wrote great books. Then nothing to not very good. Mailer, Hemingway, certainly Paul McCartney.
Not to pick on Bob Dylan, but I am still amazed by his early stuff and god bless him he still wants to make music. See the difference?
Not to pick on Bob Dylan, but I am still amazed by his early stuff and god bless him he still wants to make music. See the difference?
Being somewhat of a cloudcuckoolander myself I sometimes wonder what differentiates the cuckoolander brain from the generic/boring model. This makes me wonder, are cuckoolanders and creatives in general just more open to the possibility of unmapped systems than are non-creatives? Or are they worse at overcoming the child's natural cloud-cuckoolander mindset as they age?
By far the most creative man I knew was schizophrenic. He could hardly manage his life, but his stories [which he believed to be true] had the hallucinatory quality of magic realist fiction, or maybe more pertinently, the fabulism of children.
I'd like to respectfully disagree, after giving this some thought. I find creativity to be like a muscle that needs to be worked out and exercised in order to stay in functioning shape. Let's take the 10,000 hour theory that Malcolm Gladwell espouses, which basically says that it takes 10,000 hours to truly master something. Anything. Your job. Or guitar playing, of which I can speak first hand.
Having put my 10,000 hours in, I do feel a sense of mastery over what I can do and say with the guitar, and it allows me to instantly get a lick or a progression from my head to my fingers and onto the fretboard. I'm 57, and have been playing The Blues since I was 20. I can creatively express myself now in ways that I couldn't even dream of years ago.
Now translate that to any creative process, and somebody who has put the time and effort into mastering whatever medium they are using.
While thinking that "skipping your veggies will keep you a child" is a creative way of looking at things, a medical researcher who creates a new way to treat a disease is also being creative. Some creative experiments may yield results that say "skip your veggies". Your 10,000 hours in that field will help you to determine the viability of those results.
Having put my 10,000 hours in, I do feel a sense of mastery over what I can do and say with the guitar, and it allows me to instantly get a lick or a progression from my head to my fingers and onto the fretboard. I'm 57, and have been playing The Blues since I was 20. I can creatively express myself now in ways that I couldn't even dream of years ago.
Now translate that to any creative process, and somebody who has put the time and effort into mastering whatever medium they are using.
While thinking that "skipping your veggies will keep you a child" is a creative way of looking at things, a medical researcher who creates a new way to treat a disease is also being creative. Some creative experiments may yield results that say "skip your veggies". Your 10,000 hours in that field will help you to determine the viability of those results.
I don't know if the same perspective existed before there were so many distractions. Jefferson,for instance, as just a rich literate person of his time; how many languages did he speak? Architect, farmer, author, legislator, and founder of a country. Spinner? No. Computer? no. Television? No. Google? No. Movies? No.
I think modern distractions lead to undercutting the time to think. Look at trump. Tweet, tweet, tweet without so much as a moment to think about what he's trying to express. And what he's trunk to say isn't worth much to begin with.
Quiet time is a rare commodity in the modern era.
I think modern distractions lead to undercutting the time to think. Look at trump. Tweet, tweet, tweet without so much as a moment to think about what he's trying to express. And what he's trunk to say isn't worth much to begin with.
Quiet time is a rare commodity in the modern era.
If you read the book Drawing On The Right Side Of Your Brain you learn that the left side of our brain organizes things by naming them so it doesn't have to spend energy "thinking" about them again. It really apparent about about 7. Our brains are the most energy using muscle we have so it makes sense. I continually use the lesson in the book to look at something upside down and refrain from using a name for anything to be able to look at it differently and then more creatively.
It feels as if my creativity, which was once pretty outrageous, began to wane after menopause. Maybe it's the absence of children in my life, now that my granddaughter is grown. Also, I find I'm not as interested in creation, as I used to be. These days, I'm amazed to realize just how limited my creative thinking has become. I just don't have the great ideas, or the adaptability I used to have. But, as you age, you must go with the flow, and do the best you can. Now, I end each day with a summary my contentment.
13
Well, mine didn't and this experience is not everyone's universal. Worse NYT fave I've ever seen and there have been some corners.
1
The free associations that children make are mistakenly thought by many, including these authors, to be creativity. It's not. It's naivety. As an art teacher, grades K - 6 for nearly 30 years, I have known many creative children and had the opportunity to watch them grow through their formative years. Defining creativity is best left to real experts. Like the difference between a diamond and a piece of glass, you'll know the difference when you see it.
Does it fade with age? Now, at age 70, let me suggest that it doesn't have to. But, like fitness, one must work at it.
Does it fade with age? Now, at age 70, let me suggest that it doesn't have to. But, like fitness, one must work at it.
2
Look at our government. What % of the members of Congress, the SCOTUS and leadership in the White House (not to mention corporate leaders) are under the age of 40 these days?
You have to wonder what impact that has had on not only our political efficacy but also whether the U.S. is capable of coming up with creative solutions to our socioeconomic problems.
Here is what I have noticed in the past decade: the same arguments as we had in the early 1980s and the 1960s. It is like the country is stuck in the movie Groundhog Day.
You have to wonder what impact that has had on not only our political efficacy but also whether the U.S. is capable of coming up with creative solutions to our socioeconomic problems.
Here is what I have noticed in the past decade: the same arguments as we had in the early 1980s and the 1960s. It is like the country is stuck in the movie Groundhog Day.
4
Really? You want us to suddenly put the under 40's in charge? Have you looked at them lately? And the truly trite and stupid things they fixate on?
No, I'll take experience, even its calcifying a bit, over the impetuous, knee-jerk reactions of the under 40 crowd. Many of whom just got out of their parents house, and have only had a good job for a few years. Who still waste their time and money on childish pursuits. The males who still obsess over their video game scores, and who burn a whole lot of brain matter on fantasy football. Women who think growling Beyonce lyrics in the mirror is a form of self-affirmation, and cant come to grips with the realities that their boyfriends/husbands are child-men, who would if allowed wear flip-flops everywhere they go. Women who still think starvation diets are going to return them that 20yo body.
Nah...I'll take some old curmudgeons who know a bit about how the world actually works, over the under 40 crowd.
Unless of course you think its innovative to create an APP to tell you where to eat sushi, when asking a few people who actually eat sushi, seems an insurmountable and inefficient means.
Nope..no thanks. I dont trust the current under 40's, anymore then the "Hippies" trusted those over 30 back in the day.
No, I'll take experience, even its calcifying a bit, over the impetuous, knee-jerk reactions of the under 40 crowd. Many of whom just got out of their parents house, and have only had a good job for a few years. Who still waste their time and money on childish pursuits. The males who still obsess over their video game scores, and who burn a whole lot of brain matter on fantasy football. Women who think growling Beyonce lyrics in the mirror is a form of self-affirmation, and cant come to grips with the realities that their boyfriends/husbands are child-men, who would if allowed wear flip-flops everywhere they go. Women who still think starvation diets are going to return them that 20yo body.
Nah...I'll take some old curmudgeons who know a bit about how the world actually works, over the under 40 crowd.
Unless of course you think its innovative to create an APP to tell you where to eat sushi, when asking a few people who actually eat sushi, seems an insurmountable and inefficient means.
Nope..no thanks. I dont trust the current under 40's, anymore then the "Hippies" trusted those over 30 back in the day.
Children are uninhibited and freely associate which may be considered creative in comparison to those older who actually may be creative,but don't wish to be ridiculed when,verbally, expressing an "out of the box" idea to others.
Creativity is SOMETHINGONE HAS OR DOESN'T HAVE regardless one's age and it can manifest itself at any age.
So called courses in creativity can not teach it. Those courses merely help bring it out in those who posses it ,but rarely, if ever, in those who don't posses it.
My creativity first manifested itself in my trigonometry class in high school ,but I didn't realize it until I was more mature.
.My most recent patent issued last year at age 88 !
In 2013 I was inducted into "THE INVENTORS HALL OF FAME" for my IRIS Biometric patent issued in 1987.
My fellow inductees can tell of similar experiences.
Creativity is SOMETHINGONE HAS OR DOESN'T HAVE regardless one's age and it can manifest itself at any age.
So called courses in creativity can not teach it. Those courses merely help bring it out in those who posses it ,but rarely, if ever, in those who don't posses it.
My creativity first manifested itself in my trigonometry class in high school ,but I didn't realize it until I was more mature.
.My most recent patent issued last year at age 88 !
In 2013 I was inducted into "THE INVENTORS HALL OF FAME" for my IRIS Biometric patent issued in 1987.
My fellow inductees can tell of similar experiences.
1
"Why does creativity generally tend to decline as we age? One reason may be that as we grow older, we know more." Good joke there. As I grow older, I find that I know less. The best way to assure such a blessed state is to embark on new careers. While trained as an attorney (US Dept of Justice, Goodyear), I retired at age 43 to become a weaver, writer and artist. At age 62, I became an actor and at age 69, a film director. With no professional background or training in my later careers, that takes just a small measure of creativity to work effectively. I find that the more I strive, the less I know.
1
Perhaps our educational system plays a role in the loss of creativity. Early on in grade school, one of my children had an exercise in which she was to organize a series of pictures to tell a story. She was told by the teacher that she had done it "wrong." When I asked my daughter to tell me her story of the pictures, it made total sense; it was simply a more creative telling. When I presented that to the teacher, she was somewhat abashed. Too many of our schools may try to instill only one right answer in students, rather than being open to the creative possibilities inherent in many situations.
3
"Why does creativity generally tend to decline as we age? One reason may be that as we grow older, we know more." Good joke there. As I grow older, I find that I know less. The best way to assure such a blessed state is to embark on new careers. While trained as an attorney (US Dept of Justice, Goodyear), I retired at age 43 to become a weaver, write and artist. At age 62, I became an actor and at age 69, a film director. With no background or training in my later careers, that takes just a small measure of creativity to work effectively. I find that the more I strive, the less I know.
2
Maybe the older we get the more concerned we become with being perceived as wrong, and therefore more risk averse with creativity. Having just read the geography of genius", it seems that those who don't really care what others think become more and more creative the older they get
You certainly got that right!
Isaac Newton famously commented, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants...and (am) able to see more and farther..." Creativity has many roots and what emerges from these roots provides visions based on what is the origins of the roots and what has fed them. Different societies are like these roots and their circumstances feed them. Our technological environment fuels more technology. And it was the printing press that fueled the rise of the Western society. Creativity, long term creativity, takes what is and generates what will be.
1
"The answer: Childhood and adolescence may, at least in part, be designed to resolve the tension between exploration and exploitation."
When scientists use the term "design" to explain evolution, it's a lapse of rigor that makes me doubt the rest of the piece.
When scientists use the term "design" to explain evolution, it's a lapse of rigor that makes me doubt the rest of the piece.
5
Sylvia - Hey, they're psychologists and teachers of same...!
Dont insult the real scientists!
Dont insult the real scientists!
Rather convoluted article. I was hoping for a more scientific article seeking to explain the decline in creativity. Instead I found a convoluted description of the experimental design and a less than insightful conclusion
12
As many have commented here, I think the definition of creativity was not made explicit and was also too narrow. I suppose you might say that they studied one facet of creativity but certainly not the broad range of creativity that we as human beings exhibit.
As an art teacher in the elementary public schools and in museum settings, and as a researcher of the creative process, I developed a Philosophy of Art Education Based on Six Big Ideas:
1. EACH OF US HAS A POTENTIAL ARTIST WITHIN;
2. DEVELOPING AS AN ARTIST INVOLVES GIVING VOICE TO THE ARTIST WITHIN;
3. ARTISTS' VOICES EMERGE WITHIN A SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COMMUNITY THROUGH DIALOGUE;
4. CHILDREN NEED OPPORTUNITIES TO DEVELOP VOICES WITHIN A COMMUNITY AND THROUGH SHARING;
5. SCHOOL COMMUNITIES BECOME RICHER ENVIRONMENTS FOR DEVELOPING CREATIVITY WHEN ARTISTS, PARENTS, AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS FROM DIVERSE CULTURES PARTICIPATE.
6. JUST AS SCHOOL ART COMMUNITIES DRAW FROM COMMUNITIES, THEY CONTRIBUTE TO THE CULTURE OF THE LARGER COMMUNITIES IN WHICH THEY EXIST.
I was fortunate to have the expertise of a researcher from Harvard's Project Zero to help articulate the basic ideas outlined above.
As an adjunct instructor of Art Education and of Community Arts, several of my students researched creativity in older adults. They cited studies demonstrating that older adults who engaged in creative pursuits lived longer, were healthier and were more satisfied with their lives. I think this is a very important understanding.
As an art teacher in the elementary public schools and in museum settings, and as a researcher of the creative process, I developed a Philosophy of Art Education Based on Six Big Ideas:
1. EACH OF US HAS A POTENTIAL ARTIST WITHIN;
2. DEVELOPING AS AN ARTIST INVOLVES GIVING VOICE TO THE ARTIST WITHIN;
3. ARTISTS' VOICES EMERGE WITHIN A SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COMMUNITY THROUGH DIALOGUE;
4. CHILDREN NEED OPPORTUNITIES TO DEVELOP VOICES WITHIN A COMMUNITY AND THROUGH SHARING;
5. SCHOOL COMMUNITIES BECOME RICHER ENVIRONMENTS FOR DEVELOPING CREATIVITY WHEN ARTISTS, PARENTS, AND COMMUNITY MEMBERS FROM DIVERSE CULTURES PARTICIPATE.
6. JUST AS SCHOOL ART COMMUNITIES DRAW FROM COMMUNITIES, THEY CONTRIBUTE TO THE CULTURE OF THE LARGER COMMUNITIES IN WHICH THEY EXIST.
I was fortunate to have the expertise of a researcher from Harvard's Project Zero to help articulate the basic ideas outlined above.
As an adjunct instructor of Art Education and of Community Arts, several of my students researched creativity in older adults. They cited studies demonstrating that older adults who engaged in creative pursuits lived longer, were healthier and were more satisfied with their lives. I think this is a very important understanding.
1
I'm 85 going on 86. I have been an omnivorous reader for 80 years. I have been a teacher for 61
.
The first 33 in the same classroom with 4th and 5th graders: all subjects in a suburb of New York City. Lest others might think I had one years' experience 33 times, each new class was an entirely different experience and treated as such. As well as an opportunity to learn new ways of seeing, learning from, and nurturing different kinds of creative impulses from my kids..
The last 28 years have been with adolescents of 6th, 7th and 8th grades. Currently teaching Literature in English, or more accurately Literacy, to children born to a non-reading culture. Now there's a challenge that enables and ennobles creativity!
Creativity, too often endangered, can be engendered by simply reading anything and everything. It also helped that my parents, both teachers and who loved reading also. They would read in the living room in the evening after tests
and homework was corrected. Interrupting each other when a particular passage appealed and needed to be shared.
There was a neighbourhood library about a mile away from home I would walk to at an early age, probably from the age of 4 picking my own books. There probably a Mrs Phelps there also.
Curiosity must be nurtured and honoured whenever and however it's expressed. Creativity naturally follows, and it too must be supported by the immediate community of the family and the school. Texting on small screens does not.
.
The first 33 in the same classroom with 4th and 5th graders: all subjects in a suburb of New York City. Lest others might think I had one years' experience 33 times, each new class was an entirely different experience and treated as such. As well as an opportunity to learn new ways of seeing, learning from, and nurturing different kinds of creative impulses from my kids..
The last 28 years have been with adolescents of 6th, 7th and 8th grades. Currently teaching Literature in English, or more accurately Literacy, to children born to a non-reading culture. Now there's a challenge that enables and ennobles creativity!
Creativity, too often endangered, can be engendered by simply reading anything and everything. It also helped that my parents, both teachers and who loved reading also. They would read in the living room in the evening after tests
and homework was corrected. Interrupting each other when a particular passage appealed and needed to be shared.
There was a neighbourhood library about a mile away from home I would walk to at an early age, probably from the age of 4 picking my own books. There probably a Mrs Phelps there also.
Curiosity must be nurtured and honoured whenever and however it's expressed. Creativity naturally follows, and it too must be supported by the immediate community of the family and the school. Texting on small screens does not.
8
By the time I got to college, I realized that my elementary school education had figuratively beat the creativity out of me. I was insatiably curious and a pain in the neck. I excelled at spelling, writing, math, catching on quickly and then suffering in paroxyms of boredom glued to my chair. Don't talk, don't run, do thus, don't do that. Fast forward and I enjoyed the self esteem of being at the head of the class across the board in french, Italian, math, you name it. But writing was the hardest thing because I was afraid to take chances and hurt my GPA. So it became formulaic. In college my friend said you are so smart, all As. I told her that just means I know what is required to get an A. I took a rhetoric class. After a few As, I approached my prof and told him that I would never grow in his class because I won't risk my A. But in reality I want to experiment but I won't unless you let me. He said ok. I guarantee you an A, go ahead and experiment on future assigmments!
I believe young children are more creative than teenager and adults because they have not lived life yet and they have not gotten any education or anything to disrupt the imagination. They can think of everything and it will be okay and no one will think anything of it. But when your older people will say you know that, that can not happen and that would never work, but no one would say that to a child. But then again I think you do not have to loose creativity with age, creativity can always be there you just have to tap to that side of yourself and let it run wild. Furthermore I think there is a lot of factors lead to if your creative or not when your older such as your job, where you live, of you have kids and what type of person you are. I think younger kids will be the most creative but I also believe that older people are creative as well.
1
I've been in the arts my entire life In my late 50's looking back I can say I had lots of ideas before I was 40, but none of them amounted to a hill of beans because I had neither the knowledge or experience to manifest them in any meaningful way. That changed after 40, and as time as gone on, I've continued to learn and try new things and so have re-invented myself and my work a number of times; each time with better results. I may settle into a routine for a time--there is that desire to explore one area deeply--- but have lots of ideas for different pathways. To many of the insightful comments here, I would add this: we don't run out of ideas; we simply run out of time.
4
This article is so wrong. Creativity in a child is wonderful to watch and should be encouraged with a broad range of information and experiences from free play to reading to trips to museums (some great art was done by "older" artists), to simple toys (ever seen a little kid with a cardboard box?)
Adults have judgement and in some ways that is good. Tempering anything that could be violent and destructive is necessary. But otherwise, let creativity flow. It can be a release.
As for people with dementia, I encourage you the watch "I remember better when I paint." Its on Youtube.
Adults have judgement and in some ways that is good. Tempering anything that could be violent and destructive is necessary. But otherwise, let creativity flow. It can be a release.
As for people with dementia, I encourage you the watch "I remember better when I paint." Its on Youtube.
3
When the authors claim that "humans have an exceptionally long childhood and prolonged adolescence," they naively assume that these are fixed entities that have always existed across space and time. This is clearly not the case. Arguably childhood did not exist in the modern sense before the Renaissance. Adolescence is an even more recent invention and wouldn't have been recognized by most of our human ancestors.
4
I share the thoughts of many other readers- this does not square with my 59 years of life experience. I spend a lot of time with children and adolescents professionally, and also lead teams of faculty to creatively try to solve vexing public health problems. We systematically study the problem from all angles, and then free associate solutions to the point of a absurdity, select from the feasible solutions, and run a study to test if the solution has the desired effect. The creative part is enormously fun, at times silly a childlike. My point is, experience, hard work, plus creative solutions. Gen Tati on is a process that can be developed and nurtured. I don't think it's predestined to lose creativity with age.
2
While in graduate school I wondered if creativity can be separated from intelligence and designed a thesis working with teenagers to prove this. As it was the correlation between creativity and intelligence turned out to be high. I still wonder how to define creativity and how it can be studied.
1
Perhaps I'm over-simplifying or missing a vital fact, but evrtything I've, yes, *learned* points toward the extended childhood the author cites as being a relatively modern development. In centuries past any child who didn't die before the age of usefulness was put to work - in the fields, in service, in the military, in the mines or factories - so how would this evolutionary explanation, which alreafy seems naively based on a very artificial model, have applied them in any way?
4
The adult reaction in these comments to the assertion that children are more "creative" than they shows that adults put a filter of "utility" on the judgement. If creativity results in nonsense, then it is nonsense creating nothing -i.e. not eating vegetables making one a kid again. There is an assumption that creativity must result in something substantial.
Rather I would argue creativity is formulating possibilities that can be rotated in the mind's eye and examined. Children do not have the experiences to judge how each possibility will stand up to the tests of the physical world. They are not so quick to reject the "unusual". Adults are sometimes too quick to reject it. Therein lies the difference.
Rather I would argue creativity is formulating possibilities that can be rotated in the mind's eye and examined. Children do not have the experiences to judge how each possibility will stand up to the tests of the physical world. They are not so quick to reject the "unusual". Adults are sometimes too quick to reject it. Therein lies the difference.
1
A scooter is safer than a skateboard; please note that mine were made with wood from crates and wheels from old and rusted (stayed in oil for up to a year) ball-bearing skates; growing during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, sometimes you had to wait for things
I could hold on while using the scooter, but not when riding my skateboard. The balance was better, but I had fun using both. That the scooter is safer is not uncreative; it's logical. Kids have active imaginations and, sometimes logic eludes them. Maybe Sally just liked riding a skateboard - and was good at it - and Josie fell off a scooter a few times.
I could hold on while using the scooter, but not when riding my skateboard. The balance was better, but I had fun using both. That the scooter is safer is not uncreative; it's logical. Kids have active imaginations and, sometimes logic eludes them. Maybe Sally just liked riding a skateboard - and was good at it - and Josie fell off a scooter a few times.
2
I would like to suggest that humor is a way of keeping creative ideas in play into adulthood. What is humor? Is it not: coming up with absurd and unexpected solutions to stories and situations? I'm speaking here, of course, of the kind of humor that tends toward the philosophical or the absurd. Faced with a broken mechanical device, for instance, my father, who was an engineer and an excellent mechanic, enjoyed joking that the device was broken for reasons, or repairable by means, that were patently absurd - absurd yet thinkable...
I'm fairly certain that what might hold true for good mechanics also hold true for teachers, scholars, writers, artists... maybe even comedians. (but that's their job!)
In any case I would love to see something like this same study, but in which a participant's "natural tendency" toward humor - the philosophical, absurdist kind - were somehow quantified, and the results checked against this axis. My guess would be that those more inclined to amuse themselves with humor, at least within a given context - machines or stories - would have the greatest tendency to avoid the pitfalls of obvious solutions.
I'm fairly certain that what might hold true for good mechanics also hold true for teachers, scholars, writers, artists... maybe even comedians. (but that's their job!)
In any case I would love to see something like this same study, but in which a participant's "natural tendency" toward humor - the philosophical, absurdist kind - were somehow quantified, and the results checked against this axis. My guess would be that those more inclined to amuse themselves with humor, at least within a given context - machines or stories - would have the greatest tendency to avoid the pitfalls of obvious solutions.
3
I'm not sure this means anything, but I am a 78 year old retiree and by far this is the most creative and productive time of my life. Previously I had a 35 year career as a "semi-successful" playwright and, in that great American tradition, reinvented myself as a free-lance journalist and all-around gadfly. As to creativity, I am currently writing a memoir that tries to solve all the questions that writing a memoir of a life-of-the-mind presents. Also, for some unexplainable reason, I started writing poetry, something I haven't done for fifty years. And I could go on, but you get my point which is that when people retire and are not concerned with making a living, do they blossom and follow their true passions.
JD
JD
5
Great post.. Suggests that having jobs might be the thing that crushes creativity.
1
This is an incredibly simplified and one-dimensional discussion, and therefore useless. Age is just one dimension; there are so many other factors...knowledge, experience, vision, and motivation. These factors can aid rather than detract from creativity. Witness the move towards "design thinking" that is now pervading the technology industry.
Economic circumstances undoubtedly matter as well. Irrespective of age, relaxing on a beach is more conducive to creativity than toiling at a job.
Economic circumstances undoubtedly matter as well. Irrespective of age, relaxing on a beach is more conducive to creativity than toiling at a job.
4
I endorse the judgment made in this response. The authors of the original article (and so far as I can see everyone else involved in the discussion) seem to assume without question that 'creativity' is a wholly unproblematic concept, that we all know it when we see it, and we all see it alike. Another assumption built into the discussion seems to be that 'creative' is pretty much synonymous with 'off the wall'. Abandon these assumptions and what remains of the original article and the discussion? Not much, I suspect. ,
All my life people have described me as being creative. I will accept that description in tiny letters. But, I think that the mind that is open and rich with curiosity is fertile for creativity. I am a widow and close to eighty. As soon as I found out about the totality of the solar eclipse I ordered safety glasses for my family and friends and neighbors and taxi drivers. I think that any teacher who ignored this wondrous once-in-a-lifetime situation and did not prepare has no business in a classroom. a person who couldn't care less has no business as a teacher. Why, because creativity is dependent on curiosity. Working on any project depends on asking yourself constantly: what will work. What changes will enhance the effect. Over and over again. Curiosity means being alive and flexible and happy with changes of your doing. It's opening yourself to what is happening.
4
Of course, we LEARN to lose our imagination. It is beaten out of us at school and it is rarely rewarded in our work-a-day wonky world.
Luckily, there is pretty easy solution. Take an improv class.
At 80 Alan Alda is teaching scientists that they, too, can play. (See Alda Center for Communicating Science.) If a hard-nosed empiricist can learn to channel some inner whimsy to make her research resonate with a lay audience, so can you.
Luckily, there is pretty easy solution. Take an improv class.
At 80 Alan Alda is teaching scientists that they, too, can play. (See Alda Center for Communicating Science.) If a hard-nosed empiricist can learn to channel some inner whimsy to make her research resonate with a lay audience, so can you.
2
Oh my, what a stilted and very un-creative study (in my opinion). If creativity may even very roughly be boiled-down to the trite, "thinking outside of the box", then how on earth could one pretend to gauge or quantify it with some kind of Bob Barker-ish choice of boxes??
Creativity for me is, but not limited to, not just answers, choices and form but a palpable connectivity to a solution that does not rely upon, or require, learning, past experience nor precedent.
Young children are indeed very often perfect examples of wells of creativity but we will pound them into square holes quickly enough and, as a result, by pre-adolescence they will be so concerned with what "everyone else" thinks, feels or does that the very what-should-be-budding creativity is, well, nipped at the bud.
I think that later in life the time may again indeed become ripe for a rebirth of sorts as we just might possibly be more apt at moving away from the feeling of being under some kind of societal magnifying glass; and just not care so much about what everybody else may be thinking.
In our society as a whole, money with its inordinately important role becomes THE measure, thus fatally tainting pure creativity.
In the end it's not what we put in that is creative but, indeed, what we are able to leave out.
Creativity for me is, but not limited to, not just answers, choices and form but a palpable connectivity to a solution that does not rely upon, or require, learning, past experience nor precedent.
Young children are indeed very often perfect examples of wells of creativity but we will pound them into square holes quickly enough and, as a result, by pre-adolescence they will be so concerned with what "everyone else" thinks, feels or does that the very what-should-be-budding creativity is, well, nipped at the bud.
I think that later in life the time may again indeed become ripe for a rebirth of sorts as we just might possibly be more apt at moving away from the feeling of being under some kind of societal magnifying glass; and just not care so much about what everybody else may be thinking.
In our society as a whole, money with its inordinately important role becomes THE measure, thus fatally tainting pure creativity.
In the end it's not what we put in that is creative but, indeed, what we are able to leave out.
2
Hokusai (1760-1849) Japanese artist, The Great Wave, views of Mt Fuji:
'I have drawn since I was 6. All that I made before the age of 65 is not worth counting. At 73 I began to understand the true construction of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. At 90 I will enter into the secret of things. At 110, everything - every dot, every dash - will live.'
'I have drawn since I was 6. All that I made before the age of 65 is not worth counting. At 73 I began to understand the true construction of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. At 90 I will enter into the secret of things. At 110, everything - every dot, every dash - will live.'
9
For me, the soul of this issue comes down to imagination. A child and young person has not lived long enough to have a full landscape of life's experiences to draw from, which is where their imagination comes into play and where they formulate creative scenarios to many things, questions and "problems". Over time, that creativity can develop, grow and expand in many different areas.
I think the potential of creativity and imagination is great for many adults. Unfortunately, too often, life and responsibilities gets in the way and the imagination lens becomes cloudy and out of focus. I think adults just place so much pressure on themselves with work, family and everything in between, the imagination/creativity parts of their brain become a little dormant.
I think a key in adulthood is to remember to think out of the box, keep an open mind to possibilities, and to listen and observe children and other adults. Not everyone can be a great fiction writer, composer, painter or Wall Street Ad Man. But perhaps bringing your spouse a fresh bouquet of violets instead of roses is creative and fresh. The possibilities are endless. A person just has to use their imagination and not be afraid.
1
As a nurse who has worked with many a patient, I think people would be amazed to see artistic creativity among those with dementia.
So what does that say? A whole new and different, but very interesting take.
I have family members who say something like "My dad never would have done that previously." Maybe there is a newfound unleashed freedom.
So what does that say? A whole new and different, but very interesting take.
I have family members who say something like "My dad never would have done that previously." Maybe there is a newfound unleashed freedom.
3
I have long believed that our educational system stifles creativity because teachers who are not creative themselves do not understand how the creative mind works. I know, because I was one of those children.
I equate our public education system to the military whose goal is to break down new recruits and reshape them into like-minded fighting men and women. Our public schools expect all children to conform to a standard of behavior and expectations that do not always suit one's personality or needs.
The concern that many have today that school choice will weaken our public education system would not exist if they better addressed the needs of all children.
I equate our public education system to the military whose goal is to break down new recruits and reshape them into like-minded fighting men and women. Our public schools expect all children to conform to a standard of behavior and expectations that do not always suit one's personality or needs.
The concern that many have today that school choice will weaken our public education system would not exist if they better addressed the needs of all children.
5
Creativity can be assigned to people who continually as they age are creative. not significantly but still doing so. Then there are the people who creatively manage to build something really world-class, far above most everyone.
If the authors were more data oriented they might have used data points on when famous people were "creative" My guess is that most had great flashes of creativity in the 20s and 30s and then reduced to a small stream later on. They are still creative but a lesser rate. At least for world-class ideas.
So creativity is what you define. Be creative until you die.
If the authors were more data oriented they might have used data points on when famous people were "creative" My guess is that most had great flashes of creativity in the 20s and 30s and then reduced to a small stream later on. They are still creative but a lesser rate. At least for world-class ideas.
So creativity is what you define. Be creative until you die.
1
How do you know people were successful? You often have to rely on history (a shallow dive based on some opinions of gatekeepers). In mathematics, they won't even consider someone over 40 for the Fields Medal, the top prize. So if you think you can study data on Field Medals for example, well we already know the answer you would "find": no one over 40 ever made any contributions at all. But it's not true.
This article came to mind while reading yours: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/07/opinion/sunday/to-be-a-genius-think-l...
Personally, after years of "recreating" in the music field, I am much more tapped into my creative side now that I am in my 70s. The same is true of many of my even-older colleagues.
Personally, after years of "recreating" in the music field, I am much more tapped into my creative side now that I am in my 70s. The same is true of many of my even-older colleagues.
5
I think the authors have misunderstood the processes of creativity. Scientists and psych people often do that (Malcolm Gladwell famously did, in Outliers). Creativity is not about imagining illogical solutions that will never be tested. If it were, children would be the best artists. But they are not.
Creativity is synthesis and observation. It takes a lifetime of matching and uncoupling concepts to make art that will stand on its own. Flights of fancy may impress non-artists, but a lifetime of work, diligence, and experimentation bears the most nutritious fruit.
Creativity is synthesis and observation. It takes a lifetime of matching and uncoupling concepts to make art that will stand on its own. Flights of fancy may impress non-artists, but a lifetime of work, diligence, and experimentation bears the most nutritious fruit.
15
what if creativity disappears because we have a culture the creates institutions that inhibit it? There are cultures that don't have such an impact and adults are allowed to be more fanciful and creative
7
This article is confusing, I think it's a great topic but it is hard to follow the thread. Contrary to the author's suggestion of diminishing creativity in aging, I am finding the opposite to be true. I would love an assistant to help me sort all of my ideas, I often wake up 3 or 4 new things to try out. I am a designer.
As a child I was worried about so many things I don't remember having many creative thoughts. I had escape plans in case the house burned down and practiced fire drills in secret. Or planned what we would do if a parent did not come back from an enraged fleeing for unknown amounts of time.
Everyone died too young and I am no longer caring for aging relatives.
I am now enjoying a very carefree imagination and it is great gift.
I think that the ability to be creative might have something to do with stress levels.
As a child I was worried about so many things I don't remember having many creative thoughts. I had escape plans in case the house burned down and practiced fire drills in secret. Or planned what we would do if a parent did not come back from an enraged fleeing for unknown amounts of time.
Everyone died too young and I am no longer caring for aging relatives.
I am now enjoying a very carefree imagination and it is great gift.
I think that the ability to be creative might have something to do with stress levels.
11
When my son was three, he did a crayon scribble I labelled "Bird In Flight" and stuck on the refrigerator to much applause. I doubt I would get the same review; in fact, I would more likely get a psych evaluation. The world of children is unlimited, optimistic, uncircumscribed, confident, and usually approved. The world of adults is no such thing: it is limited, full of data, anxiety, disapproval, and applause is almost always reserved for that which provides money. Lots of it.
Aging people can do far more than they anticipate or expect and I am a case in point: I gave up art at thirteen when my family moved and didn't pursue it again until I became unemployed by the Great Recession at 64. Broke, I mostly loitered in art stores, but I also took an occasional cheap six week course. I was awful, and so discouraged I once left the paints out to work on for two years.
I'm now 71. I made progress when I forced myself to paint every day for a year. I am shocked and stunned by how much I have achieved: I never thought someone my age could go beyond the natural talent they displayed as a child. But they can. They do. I conducted a self study, took free on line art courses at Khan Academy, watched youtube instructional videos, picked up second hand books, started an art twitter account. Painted..
Adults fail because they are told they can't. But they can. And they might succeed beyond their wildest dreams.
Aging people can do far more than they anticipate or expect and I am a case in point: I gave up art at thirteen when my family moved and didn't pursue it again until I became unemployed by the Great Recession at 64. Broke, I mostly loitered in art stores, but I also took an occasional cheap six week course. I was awful, and so discouraged I once left the paints out to work on for two years.
I'm now 71. I made progress when I forced myself to paint every day for a year. I am shocked and stunned by how much I have achieved: I never thought someone my age could go beyond the natural talent they displayed as a child. But they can. They do. I conducted a self study, took free on line art courses at Khan Academy, watched youtube instructional videos, picked up second hand books, started an art twitter account. Painted..
Adults fail because they are told they can't. But they can. And they might succeed beyond their wildest dreams.
19
Good for you! I've painted for years and can say that you never cease using your brain to figure out problems painting presents. If you're in Boston you can go to any of a number of wonderful museums to see how the masters solved these problems for themselves. Welcome to the world of art - it's a wonderful place to have wound up!
1
Creativity with respect to the stages of a human life (childhood through old age) and its value in modern society?
Taking as wide a view as possible, it appears to me human society is a staggering waste of creativity, consciousness, deliberate action. The more gifted individuals have always had it rough in society, and certainly the average individual has consciousness, creativity, deliberate action crushed and subsumed to the whole. Humans today would say each individual has more consciousness than say, an ant, and that human society is vastly more conscious and coordinated than an ant colony, but we should really put it on as mathematical a basis as possible and ask what exactly is the ratio in each individual and over society as whole of the conscious, creative, deliberate action forces in life over the unconscious, instinctive forces in life.
I suspect every human will assert they are quite conscious, creative, in control, but examine every individual's effect on the whole of society and what do you see? Probably very few having much effect, and certainly geniuses, those with maximum creativity, are by no means dominant over the whole. And the whole itself, public sphere of conversation and consciousness? How is that with an obviously high ratio of consciousness, creativity, deliberate action over an ant colony? We need this problem of consciousness, creativity vs. instinct, unconsciousness put on a sound scientific basis, ratio applied to all and between species.
Taking as wide a view as possible, it appears to me human society is a staggering waste of creativity, consciousness, deliberate action. The more gifted individuals have always had it rough in society, and certainly the average individual has consciousness, creativity, deliberate action crushed and subsumed to the whole. Humans today would say each individual has more consciousness than say, an ant, and that human society is vastly more conscious and coordinated than an ant colony, but we should really put it on as mathematical a basis as possible and ask what exactly is the ratio in each individual and over society as whole of the conscious, creative, deliberate action forces in life over the unconscious, instinctive forces in life.
I suspect every human will assert they are quite conscious, creative, in control, but examine every individual's effect on the whole of society and what do you see? Probably very few having much effect, and certainly geniuses, those with maximum creativity, are by no means dominant over the whole. And the whole itself, public sphere of conversation and consciousness? How is that with an obviously high ratio of consciousness, creativity, deliberate action over an ant colony? We need this problem of consciousness, creativity vs. instinct, unconsciousness put on a sound scientific basis, ratio applied to all and between species.
Many of the comments try to point to adults in "creative" fields as a refutation of the basic idea or thesis in this article. But becoming skillful in a discipline that is considered "creative" is not the same as purely creative thinking. It is more learned behavior than simply random thought process. A business person can be just as skillful and innovative in his particular field as an "artist" but many of those commenting would not, it seems, consider what the business person does as creative thinking because it not in one of the traditional "creative" disciplines. In a way, the comments prove the article's thesis more than the article.
1
Here is a truly anecdotal thought that I cannot resist presenting, doing so after reading a comment in which bobl chicago wonders why so many musicians (apparently pop and rock and roll) end up just playing their old music and not creating new. A replier there gives a good explanation.
When I started my 12th life at age 84 I made a decision. When I choose to listen to music, I will only listen to music I have never heard before, and I will do so only when I can concentrate totally.
I have been well rewarded. I began with Eliot Carter and then read analyses of what he had done at different stages. Within jazz, the Nefertiti Series provided by Göteborgs symfoniorkester GSO gave me and my seat neighbors two major artists and their groups. Vijay Iyer was one, and Rudresh Mahanthappa was the other. Hearing them for the very first time live was an unbelievable experience, since each group has a cohesion without a single piece of paper before them that says they are doing something impossible.
Listening to new music requires that the older person - me - has to try to find creative ways to explain why the new music is so fascinating. Not easy. Would help if the musicians themselves would give us lessons on how they do what they do - on YouTube.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
When I started my 12th life at age 84 I made a decision. When I choose to listen to music, I will only listen to music I have never heard before, and I will do so only when I can concentrate totally.
I have been well rewarded. I began with Eliot Carter and then read analyses of what he had done at different stages. Within jazz, the Nefertiti Series provided by Göteborgs symfoniorkester GSO gave me and my seat neighbors two major artists and their groups. Vijay Iyer was one, and Rudresh Mahanthappa was the other. Hearing them for the very first time live was an unbelievable experience, since each group has a cohesion without a single piece of paper before them that says they are doing something impossible.
Listening to new music requires that the older person - me - has to try to find creative ways to explain why the new music is so fascinating. Not easy. Would help if the musicians themselves would give us lessons on how they do what they do - on YouTube.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
4
I'm sure this a complex phenomenon, which allows me to focus on my particular prejudice here.
As a child ages, he or she experiences changing expectations and rewards.
What is delightful creativity in a youngster may prevent the adolescent from being accepted among the cool kids or the young adult from achieving educational or career goals.
That is, except for a few arenas of endeavor, we become less accepting and more suspicious of creativity with age. We demand, and our education system gives us, reliable drones with only occasional explosions of commercially viable creativity along the way.
Among adults what we call creativity is tightly regulated and formulaic. Broadway hits, gold records, fashion stardom, really 'uge business deals: all fall within fairly restrictive bounds.
It's not just creativity that may (or may not) fade with age, it is the courage and the internal resources to be creative in the face of opposition and expectations from society in general and spouses, parents, children in particular.
Its not for nothing that the adult's birds cage has the doors soldered shut in your illustration. And it is all of us on the outside who have done it.
As a child ages, he or she experiences changing expectations and rewards.
What is delightful creativity in a youngster may prevent the adolescent from being accepted among the cool kids or the young adult from achieving educational or career goals.
That is, except for a few arenas of endeavor, we become less accepting and more suspicious of creativity with age. We demand, and our education system gives us, reliable drones with only occasional explosions of commercially viable creativity along the way.
Among adults what we call creativity is tightly regulated and formulaic. Broadway hits, gold records, fashion stardom, really 'uge business deals: all fall within fairly restrictive bounds.
It's not just creativity that may (or may not) fade with age, it is the courage and the internal resources to be creative in the face of opposition and expectations from society in general and spouses, parents, children in particular.
Its not for nothing that the adult's birds cage has the doors soldered shut in your illustration. And it is all of us on the outside who have done it.
4
Your experiments discussed in the article, are themselves devoid of creativity and actually answer the questions you pose but not in the way you think. I believe and have experienced, as I became older, we are educated to view things in terms of either/or, two, maybe three options and rewarded in being able to conform, to standard, if you will. Creative nature, knows no limit, does not hold back, and can make many people uncomfortable if they are uncomfortable with those very qualities. We have unlimited potential, unlimited creativity when we believe there are no limits to our abilities.
8
Your response to the researchers showed rare insight. "Blocks stacked" , "scooters evaluated"? As a test subject I would be bored by the instructions before even taking the "test" a process which you correctly discredit as "binary". Creativity is at root a manifestation of shades of grey the juxtaposition of which becomes the cause of engagement. To say that a person is a "creative" businessman/baker/ plumber etc is really a misuse of the term. Too many shades of grey lead a company to certain bankruptcy while that very same feature causes an artwork to become a source of wonder, mystery and ambiguity.
7
Creativity is like a kaleidoscope - individual, ordinary objects when disassembled; magic when they are combined and begin to form patterns. And with a twist of the wrist, these same "ordinary" parts form new and different patterns to create new perspectives, new ways to analyze/appreciate the whole.
The neurochemical basis for these observations seems to me to be quite straight forward and obvious, but then I am just an old guy.
3
I thought this was common knowledge. I remember hearing presentations about the differences between creativity and age in the 1990s.
One particularly striking study compared creativity between age groups - kindergarteners, teenagers, adults. They gave the subject a simple object, such a toy baseball bat, and asked them to identify as many uses as possible for the object. Kindergarteners generated two to three times as many ideas as adults, and the kindergarteners were far more likely to generate unusual or unique ideas than older children or adults.
I've always wondered whether creative adults are creative because, unlike other adults, they have been able to retain this from childhood.
One particularly striking study compared creativity between age groups - kindergarteners, teenagers, adults. They gave the subject a simple object, such a toy baseball bat, and asked them to identify as many uses as possible for the object. Kindergarteners generated two to three times as many ideas as adults, and the kindergarteners were far more likely to generate unusual or unique ideas than older children or adults.
I've always wondered whether creative adults are creative because, unlike other adults, they have been able to retain this from childhood.
1
A Chinese fortune cookie I once opened said "the value of a cup is in its emptiness." So is it with the young and inexperienced. The corollary is the value of an older, experienced person is in their fullness. Unfortunately, it can often be limiting as well. In managing innovation, I have often found success in paring the younger, less experienced with older, more experienced workers. With the right coaching, the two feed off each other's ideas and the results can be powerful.
12
Now retired I'm learning French. I find the biggest problem is not so much learning French but unlearning English, in other words rules of grammar and pronounciation which I assumed immutable, and which to me are instinctive, are different in French. I know how to pronounce words that end in "ation" or "ent", but I can't shake the habit of English.
I imagine it's the same with creativity, in a new situation we often find ourselves assuming rules that don't apply, or can be broken.
I imagine it's the same with creativity, in a new situation we often find ourselves assuming rules that don't apply, or can be broken.
7
This article does not make any sense. Regardless, I feel more self-confident the older I get. And that makes me feel more sure of my creative impulses and solutions than when I was younger and trying to fit in socially.
13
I volunteer in childcare and marvel at the kids' creativity - just the other day they invited me to join a game - I asked what they were playing - the girl said 'just pretend' - um - OK - we quickly got into a full-on chase and fall over laughing battle - until her hair was accidentally pulled and she decided to start crying
If Alexander the Great was leading armies in his teenage years - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great - then there are arguments that youth is to explore new ways in changing times - as in DNA's evolution by genetic selection to best suit changing environments
so youth can be the explorers of new ways and new technology - adults can fear for young people on the internet, but when I have enquired, young people are typically well ahead of adults understanding in managing their own security - so the joke now goes - for old people to find out how to use new technology, ask a kid !
If Alexander the Great was leading armies in his teenage years - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great - then there are arguments that youth is to explore new ways in changing times - as in DNA's evolution by genetic selection to best suit changing environments
so youth can be the explorers of new ways and new technology - adults can fear for young people on the internet, but when I have enquired, young people are typically well ahead of adults understanding in managing their own security - so the joke now goes - for old people to find out how to use new technology, ask a kid !
The authors of this article seem to have decided that creativity diminishes with age. Their comments constantly say as much -- "No grown-up would ever come up with that idea", "Why does creativity generally tend to decline as we age", etc. So it's more than possible that their experiments were set up (subconsciously or not) in a manner that would "prove" their foregone conclusion.
17
Free play is the essence of creativity.
All children do it effortlessly, and all adults who abandon it lose it.
But any good artist gets better with age, and produces works more masterfully creative than all but a tiny percentage of highly gifted children, such as Mozart.
Artists, not psychologists, are the experts on creativity. Creativity is exactly what's lacking in the authors' vacuous experiments, their writing, and their presumptuous conclusions.
I'm a 72-year-old artist, composer, media producer, and writer. The inspiration and joy I feel in those activities has never been better.
All children do it effortlessly, and all adults who abandon it lose it.
But any good artist gets better with age, and produces works more masterfully creative than all but a tiny percentage of highly gifted children, such as Mozart.
Artists, not psychologists, are the experts on creativity. Creativity is exactly what's lacking in the authors' vacuous experiments, their writing, and their presumptuous conclusions.
I'm a 72-year-old artist, composer, media producer, and writer. The inspiration and joy I feel in those activities has never been better.
37
This is an excellent critique of the article. I am a 74-year-old painter, and recently retired illustrator, which I did for 55 years. My creativity has never been greater, as I feel I have demonstrated in my recent and upcoming exhibitions. The thing the author leaves out, which to me is the essential element: resourcefulness. Every project in life presents some form of limitation, and how we overcome these limitations is the spur to creativity. In this sense, we all can be artists with some extra effort, at any age. Art is taking ANY kind of work and developing the product to a point that transcends its original purpose.
20
Way to go, Hoody. I'm 62, been painting all my life, and all I do is get better. The learning curve for grownups is steeper. We know how to learn; kids are just trying it out.
1
Baldersnapple! To any curious person, every single day is a brand-new world. No less challenging, intriguing, inspiring, troubling, confusing, somewhat familiar, but no friend to previous actions and thoughts. Impervious to ingrained personal habits and concrete-set solutions. Each new dawn must be looked straight in the eye and asked what new stimulus, problem, inspiration it has to offer. And the plasticity of one's mind, no matter the age of the skull it's contained in, should always be ready, willing, and more than able to address it head-on in an unexpected way. Why else bother to awaken to it?
13
I've always wondered why so many musicians are creative when they were young and then merely play their old songs in concerts, or if they have new songs they aren't as creative as past ones. In my generation, in the '70's there were so many including Billy Joel, James Taylor, Carole King and Elton John just to name a few. What happened?
1
There is another explanation other than loss of creativity. The people who go to those old musician's performances tend to be old themselves and don't actually want to hear new music, they want to hear the music they loved as children, as such there's no value in creating/playing new music. Being an older millennial I've noticed that millennials tend to grumble about how remakes of our old cartoon series and movies aren't as good as the originals (with some exceptions that are just really well done) and noticed the same grumbling with my parents, who think the movies from the 1950-60s when they were young mark the pinnacle of movie accomplishment. Kids seek novelty, adults seek familiarity.
5
That's their style, and they adopt it when they start their career. Their new songs aren't creative because they are variations on the theme.
You wouldn't expect the author of detective novels to start writing romances or science fiction. Why expect Elton John to start singing opera or country and western?
You wouldn't expect the author of detective novels to start writing romances or science fiction. Why expect Elton John to start singing opera or country and western?
"And that may help each new generation change the world." Aha. Caveat lector. This final statement, puts the experiments that I frankly find dubious, in a particularly American cultural context, one that privileges experimentation, pragmatism, and change. Google Home tells me that the Chinese civilization is approximately 16.598 times longer than American nationhood. I have heard Chinese school children chanting back what their teachers say. They have traditionally learned by rote, reproducing information, lessons, moral teachings, etc. inculcated by teachers who had themselves mastered the material. The expectation was that they would learn the wisdom and experience of the past--not free associate and be rewarded for their own versions of life. Whether the U.S. can survive the current Resident's term is at issue, let alone whether it can endure for four millennia. My armchair anthropology tells me that knowing what's what in the world--the migratory habits of game, the dangerous toxicity of certain plants and food value of certain others--leaf, stem, and root in the appropriate seasons--was crucial information learned and transmitted and was essential for survival. Experimentation, like genetic mutation, far more often increased the risk of sickness and death than it aided survival. In fact, I suspect that experimentation was forced on us humans mostly via climate change and catastrophe and that our species' basal predispositions are conservative.
1
Remember that there are two kinds of humans, the kind that like to stick with their natal territory and the kind that like to strike out for unknown lands. For the former being able to learn things by rote is very important since things like what can kill you or what is good to eat are already known for the most part. For the latter however it's more important to be able to draw conclusions from patterns because you may literally know nothing about any of the plants and animals in a new habitat beyond what you can observe with your eyes. Berries, delicious or deadly? Only one way to know for sure. Americans, for better or worse, do tend to have that pioneer spirit that embodies dumping everything you know for the great unknown. By contrast the Chinese seem to be more traditional home-bodies.
1
What we know about prehistorical human migration patterns, however, tells us that, even with ice-age changes, groups moved only two (2) miles or less in a generation in search for better food sources. Yes, with advances in sea-faring transportation, more ranging, exploratory forays could be made, but for humans on land, it was the capacity to learn and transmit learning, not any pioneering spirit, that kept us alive and well.
1
A thought-provoking article and interesting experiments, but is there any evidence for some adults who retain a higher level of creativity (some inventors, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, etc.)? If so, what are the opportunity costs for trying to tap into creativity if we can as we age? Will our adult peers appreciate such creativity or expect the more predictable/familiar?
www.thewaryouknow.com
www.thewaryouknow.com
1
In the context of this discussion, age, maturity, experience are simply other words for the ability to edit. I see nothing in the study design that controlled for the tendency of mature, experienced people to edit, which could be the explanation for the so-called lack of creativity in older people. It's not necessarily that they are not having creative ideas, it could be that they are just not expressing them.
For example, ad agencies look to their creatives to come up with out "out-of-the-box" ideas. But all to often, these ideas are shot down by the account side because they are off strategy or do not appeal to a client's conservative tastes. Ad agency creatives face a dilemma in these situations: should they please the chief creative officer with ideas that could win awards at Cannes, or show how efficient and cost effective they can be by exercising discernment and immediately present ideas that are more likely to fly right from the get go?
For example, ad agencies look to their creatives to come up with out "out-of-the-box" ideas. But all to often, these ideas are shot down by the account side because they are off strategy or do not appeal to a client's conservative tastes. Ad agency creatives face a dilemma in these situations: should they please the chief creative officer with ideas that could win awards at Cannes, or show how efficient and cost effective they can be by exercising discernment and immediately present ideas that are more likely to fly right from the get go?
1
Creative adults can be fit neatly into various categories of nuts (DSM V) and generally are unless they have become wealthy, in which case the fact that they're bats is excused, usually. Being conventional is taught. People learn, unless they're unteachable.
So, you are calling Leonardo da Vinci "nuts?" He was extremely creative way into his old age. He also wasn't wealthy. And there are things to be said for not being "conventional," because that is how break-throughs happen, not by conventional thinking.
The conclusion to this experiment seems a bit half-baked to me. I really do think Gopnik and Griffiths were on the right track, but I don't think those experiments could really determine which age groups are generally the most creative. Maybe, if Gopnik and Griffiths had more experiments which were more in detail, readers of this article would agree more with the conclusion. They didn't really elaborate on the experiments that they did. I don't think we become less creative as we get older. Yes, sometimes the older people are, they don't answer the most creatively, but there could be reasons for that. Just because we don't actually answer with something really creative, it doesn't actually mean we didn't think of something creative. As we grow, we learn more about society, and with that knowledge you can become scared of people judging you, because that's just the reality of the world we live in. Just like the article said, "as we grow older, we know more," but our thoughts are more complex than just knowing more. Random thoughts, which could potentially be more creative than others, can always appear in one's mind, but we could make the decision to ignore them. Little kids aren't as mindful as us and don't really have a care in the world, so maybe they just say whatever they want and not really think much of it. I mean if we think back to all of the inventions created, they had to become a creative idea first before it was executed, and most inventions were made by adults.
1
I have been an artist and a designer all my 91 years and even now find odd thoughts that are unconventional and useful. The problem with getting conventional and unimaginative is that it is economical to accept standard solutions and go on to more current problems. Once you have learned to tie your shoes that becomes something submerged in your subconscious and it never occurs to you to try another way. Kids don't have the routine so they get the habit of re-inventing even ordinary processes and this is seen as creativity. The adult mind is chock full of automatic solutions to ordinary problems so they stop thinking in those areas. Actually, it's just a way to get things done and get on with other things. Sometimes they pick up a convention and let it travel to their subconscious and sometimes they invent Velcro.
9
Speaking as a professional sculptor, I find the birds in my head-cage are both more numerous and more exotic in my late fifties than they ever were in my youth or even in my childhood. The same could be said of many of my colleagues, not to mention artists, authors, philosophers and musicians throughout history.
Possibly the result of the experiments described here are more applicable to puzzle-solving and artificial, emotionally unengaging 'story choices' than to the arts. Sally and Josie's issues are one thing, a unique, complex and long-pursued creative universe may perhaps be another.
Certainly, no one should allow their creative impulses to be dampened or discouraged late in life by such studies or general assertions of decline.
Frank McCourt would agree, I am sure.
Possibly the result of the experiments described here are more applicable to puzzle-solving and artificial, emotionally unengaging 'story choices' than to the arts. Sally and Josie's issues are one thing, a unique, complex and long-pursued creative universe may perhaps be another.
Certainly, no one should allow their creative impulses to be dampened or discouraged late in life by such studies or general assertions of decline.
Frank McCourt would agree, I am sure.
9
"No grown-up would ever come up with that idea."
No man in the grey flannel suit need apply!
I honestly do not understand this generalization. in fact, if I didsome vasic accounting of my past, it has been, often, that my mind *does* still think and find itself entertain such little gems, that has endeared me to some, but lots of others, not so much.
It is not becoming adult that throttles creativity. It is adulthood. Some of us really do not get the attraction.
No man in the grey flannel suit need apply!
I honestly do not understand this generalization. in fact, if I didsome vasic accounting of my past, it has been, often, that my mind *does* still think and find itself entertain such little gems, that has endeared me to some, but lots of others, not so much.
It is not becoming adult that throttles creativity. It is adulthood. Some of us really do not get the attraction.
3
I don't feel less creative as I age, but I do respond to things in a more practical manner. When I am with people who become highly anxious at trying new things, I stick with the familiar - which pretty much covers most work choices. In my personal life, I am surrounded less by those who are fearful, so have more room for creative and different responses, as do they.
1
Perhaps someone should do a paper on whether psychology professors are able to differentiate creative, random, and ignorant responses to their scenarios?
7
Brilliant--the very idea of such a study, regardless of results; and therein lies the rationale for such endeavor. In the current anti-intellectual, anti-intelligence, anti-science atmosphere, though, this type of introspection and self-examination are threatened daily with being squelched. Where's the "America" part?
1
Creative expression is a form of risk. Similar to an organization that eventually grows to a size where it has more to lose than it has to gain, and therefore risks less, people become risk averse as they age -- they accumulate more that they could lose, including the self-esteem one might lose with creative expression that fails, than their younger selves, who have much to gain and little to lose.
5
In some ways, becoming older allows others to take risks they would never have done when younger, when they were too concerned with others' opinions. Maybe this is more true of women than men.
The trajectory for some women seems to be moving from girlhood where hopes and dreams were vibrant; hitting a wall at puberty where pressure to conform - awareness of social risks - can be overwhelming; spending years fulfilling duties in many role; until, post menopause, they lose fear of social disapproval and regain some of that spirit lost about 40 years in the past. One can be risk averse financially, for practical reasons, yet find more freedom to risk efforts in other areas - because there is no longer social risk, and much to gain by trying new things. And because [most] older folks have survived a lot of serious setbacks, they can handle a failure or two and go on. There is actually a lot to gain and little to lose.
The trajectory for some women seems to be moving from girlhood where hopes and dreams were vibrant; hitting a wall at puberty where pressure to conform - awareness of social risks - can be overwhelming; spending years fulfilling duties in many role; until, post menopause, they lose fear of social disapproval and regain some of that spirit lost about 40 years in the past. One can be risk averse financially, for practical reasons, yet find more freedom to risk efforts in other areas - because there is no longer social risk, and much to gain by trying new things. And because [most] older folks have survived a lot of serious setbacks, they can handle a failure or two and go on. There is actually a lot to gain and little to lose.
1
cheryl:
Interesting perspective. I think where what threatens independence, such as financial independence or sufficiency, people are less likely to risk as they grow older. But you're right -- where such independence or sufficiency isn't threatened, some may feel freer to risk than they did when younger, if they have the capacity to experiment.
Interesting perspective. I think where what threatens independence, such as financial independence or sufficiency, people are less likely to risk as they grow older. But you're right -- where such independence or sufficiency isn't threatened, some may feel freer to risk than they did when younger, if they have the capacity to experiment.
This study appears to be, as someone else noted, pretty thin.
My argument is that you seem not to have taken into account the economic situations of your subjects, and more fundamentally, the issue of nature and nurture. It just all seems so vague.
Read Malcolm Gladwell's piece on creativity: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/10/20/late-bloomers-malcolm-gladwell
My argument is that you seem not to have taken into account the economic situations of your subjects, and more fundamentally, the issue of nature and nurture. It just all seems so vague.
Read Malcolm Gladwell's piece on creativity: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/10/20/late-bloomers-malcolm-gladwell
4
Earlier today I was wondering what had happened to 'Gray Matter' and here it is. Pretty snappy. My parent was highly creative and believed that children should learn to be independent by the age of seven, known as the Age of Reason. A lot of adventures have taken place and now at a maturer age, I never call Lady Luck anything but Good Fortune.
When I was a toddler spending a winter in East Hampton with cousins in the 50s, there are a few memories that revisit. 'Mimi Midnight,' a sleek feral cat is approaching me on the lawn with a long black snake held in her jaws. Excited by this novelty, I take it from her and run to the porch to show this stolen prize to a tall dark woman wearing a turban who shouts 'drop it child, drop it', causing me later in life to wonder if a fear of snakes could have been avoided, or whether Common Sense in the form of a grown-up steps in with reasoning.
The parents I see today either smother their children with attention, joining in their growing with joy and anxiety, or leaving them to their own devices. 'What happens to creativity as We Age', for the more visual among us in search of an answer, the movie 'Forbidden Games' (1952) is recommended where a young boy asks an orphan he becomes responsible for 'Didn't your parents teach you anything'.
When I was a toddler spending a winter in East Hampton with cousins in the 50s, there are a few memories that revisit. 'Mimi Midnight,' a sleek feral cat is approaching me on the lawn with a long black snake held in her jaws. Excited by this novelty, I take it from her and run to the porch to show this stolen prize to a tall dark woman wearing a turban who shouts 'drop it child, drop it', causing me later in life to wonder if a fear of snakes could have been avoided, or whether Common Sense in the form of a grown-up steps in with reasoning.
The parents I see today either smother their children with attention, joining in their growing with joy and anxiety, or leaving them to their own devices. 'What happens to creativity as We Age', for the more visual among us in search of an answer, the movie 'Forbidden Games' (1952) is recommended where a young boy asks an orphan he becomes responsible for 'Didn't your parents teach you anything'.
2
Shucks. by the headline I thought this piece would reveal neuroscience research re this subject. Instead, just the random. thoughts of the clueless.
18
Your disappointed because the article did not identify a biological source of creativity?
Research on creativity in the realm of cognitive sciences (not neuroscience) is actually about 30 years old. It is Howard Gardner and his research on domains of performance and multiple intelligence; Mihály Csíkszentmihályi and his research on "flow"; Dan Dennnett and his writings on intention and propositional attitudes; and Sidney Strauss and U-shaped curves development...and others like Dan Sperber. And has its roots in the work of Jean Piaget on stage theory of human developments and all his successors.
Creativity is something in the world and a result of actions relative to a context....not the vacuum of a neuron firing.
This in infill on the intersection of
Research on creativity in the realm of cognitive sciences (not neuroscience) is actually about 30 years old. It is Howard Gardner and his research on domains of performance and multiple intelligence; Mihály Csíkszentmihályi and his research on "flow"; Dan Dennnett and his writings on intention and propositional attitudes; and Sidney Strauss and U-shaped curves development...and others like Dan Sperber. And has its roots in the work of Jean Piaget on stage theory of human developments and all his successors.
Creativity is something in the world and a result of actions relative to a context....not the vacuum of a neuron firing.
This in infill on the intersection of
1
How does this relate to the creativity of artists, composers, choreography, etc.?
Or is creativity reserved for the exploration of children?
Or is creativity reserved for the exploration of children?
9
Good question. I'm old and always looking for "another" way to approach my creative projects. Same goes for a lot of the artists I know.
4
Gramdma Moses, Judi Dench, and and Claude Monet, to name a few, would disprove your theory,
16
I wrote the following last week, I'm over 90.
Remembrance is a labyrinth that’s hard to trace
when years have slowed your mind. Age can defeat
exhausted focus and cause short-term memory
to grab your thoughts, render them incomplete.
The Golden Years, like Santa Claus, do not exist.
You had to sell your car; your reflex is too slow:
you almost killed your neighbor’s dog, you hit a tree -
now you take taxis, that saves you a lot of dough.
Your mate is dead, and so are all your friends.
Your kids are gone but call you every day
and recommend assisted-living-homes;
other than that they haven’t much to say.
No old-folks warehouse for unshackled sentience,
you want to die where you belong, that is a must!
You are aware when mind and body suffer loss,
but you still function as you gather dust.
Your labyrinth of life had ups and downs; you groped,
you stumbled, always knew that you must race
to absoluteness, capture it.
Death finds you waiting with a tranquil face.
Remembrance is a labyrinth that’s hard to trace
when years have slowed your mind. Age can defeat
exhausted focus and cause short-term memory
to grab your thoughts, render them incomplete.
The Golden Years, like Santa Claus, do not exist.
You had to sell your car; your reflex is too slow:
you almost killed your neighbor’s dog, you hit a tree -
now you take taxis, that saves you a lot of dough.
Your mate is dead, and so are all your friends.
Your kids are gone but call you every day
and recommend assisted-living-homes;
other than that they haven’t much to say.
No old-folks warehouse for unshackled sentience,
you want to die where you belong, that is a must!
You are aware when mind and body suffer loss,
but you still function as you gather dust.
Your labyrinth of life had ups and downs; you groped,
you stumbled, always knew that you must race
to absoluteness, capture it.
Death finds you waiting with a tranquil face.
1
Pretty thin soup if you ask me. Perhaps you should go back to the lab and use white mice this time around. I hear that the older ones are very creative so you may have to account for that.
9
Creativity is a concept far more expansive than the reductive examples here.
18
I wish your study had divided the adults into cohorts, as it did with the children and young people. Surely there is a difference worth measuring between a 23-year-old, a 49-year-old, a 71-year-old and so on. From my own experience, and from what I see in people around me, age can enhance creativity.
45
Interesting study. But I wonder what the results would be of a study that considered creativity within formal structures such as composing music or writing verse. There are prodigies, of course, but many artists seem to be more innovative as they mature.
6
I have written 250 poems since May 2016, having written only occasional poetry in the past. Yes, I count them because they are bursting out of me, at all hours of the day, and in all circumstances. I am 73 years old. I have never felt as creative.
22
As we grow older, most of us are taught to reason and be reasonable, be responsible, etc. -- we are less encouraged to imagine, to feel, to wonder, be spontaneous, etc. I believe that is also part of the equation.
8
I think that it's important to really question whether these studies measured creativity. I am more inclined to think that they instead measured deviation from the obvious (or most likely) solution. This deviation could be due to creativity, but for children, I think it more likely just shows that they don't have the tools that adults do to accurately explain phenomena. Kids are less likely to really 'get' any given situation, so their answers are more akin to guesses, which this study measures as 'creativity'.
As a fiction writer, I am as aware as anyone that creativity takes practice. Improvisation and creation require a state of mind that is honed and developed just like any other skill. That is, if we define creativity as an intentional act. Though if we don't, then it's just more randomness.
As a fiction writer, I am as aware as anyone that creativity takes practice. Improvisation and creation require a state of mind that is honed and developed just like any other skill. That is, if we define creativity as an intentional act. Though if we don't, then it's just more randomness.
69
Reminds me of the book 'Zen mind, beginners mind'...where the beginner is open to many possibilities with no preconceptions while the expert is a master who knows few possibilities.
3
The answer is as obvious as it is basic - we are all Bayesian Epistemological Machines - as we age - we simply have more Priors.
3
SteveRR, a very Bayesian Epistemological analysis, one in denial of fundamental differences between electrochemical and digital computation.
The educational system in America is designed to kill creativity. Children learn to take tests, not think. Unless we deal with this outdated behemoth we will lose all of our inventors, scientists, musicians, and playwrights.
7
Yes, as a 74 year old former Special Education Teacher I have seen many teachers of the gifted and talented make presentations as to ways to follow the selection processes to identify those (gifted and talented ) in our schools. Sadly the process is thin. Measures of curiosity and large portions of the testing/psychological community seem to ignore serendipity. I have no solutions, however an observation from my dear deceased dad that we the descendants of "The Greatest Generation" tended to conformity. I hope that my grand kids are receiving exposure to art, music, drama, physical exercise and skills beyond the realm of standardized tests. My teachers instilled a sense of both objective and subjective measurement in their classrooms. This I do not see in our curricular measurement tools today.
"Creativity", is a notion that has lots of ambiguity.
It seems likely to me (a 75 yr old), that some measures might find old geezers to be more creative, then younger folks.
(I wonder how the creativity of psychologists compares to the general population .)
It seems likely to me (a 75 yr old), that some measures might find old geezers to be more creative, then younger folks.
(I wonder how the creativity of psychologists compares to the general population .)
10
Why do adults lose their creative impulses? Because they grow up and become civilized. They sin and the forces in society that punish sinners tell them to suppress their creative thinking because they are unworthy, bad and, for the good of society, must refrain from contaminating to goodness of innocent life.
1
It's hard to know where to begin to express just how problematic this study is, and the simplistic premises about the mind that these authors embrace. So, I'll just propose a sweeping generalization: Positivistic social psychology is wasteful and pernicious. Want to understand human minds beginning with your own? Start by studying Nietzsche, or Emerson, or Goethe, or Dostoyevsky, or Dickens, or Rilke, or even Freud. Stay away from anything Kantian, or Christian.. There's at least a starting point. That starting point requires many years of reflection and study, of intellectual curiosity, which rules out youth and even most young adults. To begin to build a more creative world requires encouragement from more creative teachers. Oh right, I forgot. The authors' weren't concerned with encouraging creativity. They presumed it was an existential given across their population, and went on to ask how the variable of age explained its 'quantity' Their logic is almost Trumpian in its simplistic ignorance.
16
It should be pointed out that the logic of "Grandpa should try not eating any vegetables" is not "ingenious." It's just stupid or, more properly, just ignorant, with a dash of self-serving justification for hating vegetables. There are significant biological changes in mental capacities as we age that align with the cultural memes doting parents evoke that their child is a little genius, but they are dwarfed by non-biological differences in life circumstance. Children reason more creatively, as we say, because they reason using not better but the very same crude human mental capacities as do adults, but children do so in the dark. It's adults, not children, that appreciate what's novel in childish thinking. It's adults that recognize what's a new and potentially true line of thought. For children, it is not new, not novel; it simply, blindingly is. But genuine creative thinking is based in neither ignorant lightning strikes in the dark nor recalling accepted, conventional explanations that work on most days. Genuine thinking arises from the ability to doubt, to knowingly question and investigate conventional conclusions, especially doubting perceptions and thoughts one thinks are one's own or simply the case. Children really can't do it; neither can most adults. Wrestling productively with doubt is not natural. Doubt's stature in human activity has varied with culture and history. It is something that must be cultivated, learned and practiced, both by children and by adults.
9
And who is defining what "creativity is"? The researchers who set up the experiment? The study mentions "unusual" explanations. Is that their idea of creativity? Creativity is a talent that can be developed but clearly some people are born with more of it, just like other kinds of talent.
I've spent my career as an artist and research scientist and know that creativity has come more easily as I've gained more knowledge and experience and my creative ideas are much better in general, certainly much better than when I was a child or teenager. This seems like a trivial study.
I've spent my career as an artist and research scientist and know that creativity has come more easily as I've gained more knowledge and experience and my creative ideas are much better in general, certainly much better than when I was a child or teenager. This seems like a trivial study.
44
Creativity requires a relaxed mindset where you are open to new ideas. The older you get, you are more often tense, stressed out, and using your cognitive abilities to process all kinds of difficult situations and solve all kinds of problems. Those conditions do not facilitate the creative process. Children are free of all that so they can remain open-minded.
Adults know that if you want to do a brainstorming session where you bring out new ideas, you have to set up the environment and a mindset to lead the way into creative approaches.
Children just go there more quickly, that's all. I am 60 years old and practice creative thinking processes every day during my work as a psychologist but I have to do it consciously. I can't just expect it to happen automatically, I have to work at it. Kids get to play at it...
Adults know that if you want to do a brainstorming session where you bring out new ideas, you have to set up the environment and a mindset to lead the way into creative approaches.
Children just go there more quickly, that's all. I am 60 years old and practice creative thinking processes every day during my work as a psychologist but I have to do it consciously. I can't just expect it to happen automatically, I have to work at it. Kids get to play at it...
5
Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual. - Arthur Koestler, novelist and journalist (1905 - 1983).
"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all." - Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry.
"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all." - Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry.
5
One reason that creativity seems to decline is that the older you get, the less it is rewarded. Everyone delights when a child is creative with language, often because they haven't yet assimilated the rules but a creative adult is often perceived as an annoying outlier who should get with the program. In this society in particular, if a creative act cannot be monetized, it's deemed worthless.
68
I think old age is a time to do what you like best. Do you like reading fiction? Watching old movies? Searching for ancestors? Now's your chance. You've earned the right.
6
It is wonderful, especially if there is no authoritarian figure hovering over you. If feeling fit as a fiddle, you can have a party, stay up all night, dance with a broom, play video games and eat ice-cream. What a life!
The authors discuss the dwindling of creative thinking as people get older. This is what they study - under the overarching theory of exploration vs. exploitation.
So, how to account for humans' long childhood? The answer the authors come up with? It must be related to the exploration vs. exploitation theory! Not any of probably dozens of equally probably theories.
So, how did the authors come up with this "answer?" They "exploited" their already existing knowledge base.
And in doing so, demonstrated a decided lack of creativity.
The irony!
So, how to account for humans' long childhood? The answer the authors come up with? It must be related to the exploration vs. exploitation theory! Not any of probably dozens of equally probably theories.
So, how did the authors come up with this "answer?" They "exploited" their already existing knowledge base.
And in doing so, demonstrated a decided lack of creativity.
The irony!
9
My art tried to help me make sense of the world, now the world makes too much sense.
1
I know Albert Einstein had a thinking chair. He sat on it to think, and he thought, as I would assume, imaginations, for he said that logic will take you from A to B but imagination will take you anywhere. Moreover, one famous lawyer at Pepper Hamilton was asked by a younger lawyer how he was so good to which the elder replied something to the effect of "imagination". What is imagination? I think it has to do with beauty, relishing in good thoughts (in your life). You can find it in nature, such as that perfect photo shot, or you can find it within the confines of your memory, which you visualized.
I guess with working life, you become stressed and have no time to imagine. Google sought to encourage play, perhaps to counteract this onset of depression or stress. I know famous writers often took walks. Maybe the same can be done, not so much to observe nature, but to get lost in good thoughts.
I guess with working life, you become stressed and have no time to imagine. Google sought to encourage play, perhaps to counteract this onset of depression or stress. I know famous writers often took walks. Maybe the same can be done, not so much to observe nature, but to get lost in good thoughts.
3
“After a thoughtful pause, Augie came up with a suggestion: Grandpa should try not eating any vegetables. The logic was ingenious: Eating vegetables turns children into big strong adults, so not eating vegetables should reverse the process.”
There is another way to look at Augie’s suggestion: It isn’t that eating vegetables turns children into big strong adults. Rather, it is that adults eat their vegetables. Children do not. Therefore if you want to be a child again, simply start acting like one again. This shows that understanding a child’s simple statement is a complex (even creative) act. Also, my interpretation is difficult to refute, and I know many adults who act according to it.
There is another way to look at Augie’s suggestion: It isn’t that eating vegetables turns children into big strong adults. Rather, it is that adults eat their vegetables. Children do not. Therefore if you want to be a child again, simply start acting like one again. This shows that understanding a child’s simple statement is a complex (even creative) act. Also, my interpretation is difficult to refute, and I know many adults who act according to it.
8
I started writing fiction when I was forty-five years old. I am always amazed at the creative process: though I know what I plan to write, eventually something else finds its way to my book.
I don't think creativity is constrained by knowledge but rather by some sort of emotional inhibitions. Past experiences are re-enacted, but they need to surface without the emotional processing that followed them.
For me, writing fiction in a new way of processing my past. It is a combination of reviving early experiences and a purely intellectual attempt of generalization. Art is always a combination of the concrete and the abstract.
Does this make sense?
onourselvesandothers.com
I don't think creativity is constrained by knowledge but rather by some sort of emotional inhibitions. Past experiences are re-enacted, but they need to surface without the emotional processing that followed them.
For me, writing fiction in a new way of processing my past. It is a combination of reviving early experiences and a purely intellectual attempt of generalization. Art is always a combination of the concrete and the abstract.
Does this make sense?
onourselvesandothers.com
6
physical vs. social
i wonder if the younger cohort may be more creative because they have yet to be hammered into the conformity schooling requires. they have some independence of thought lacking in the older groups and adults after years and decades of having this independence of thought systematically removed.
the older may show more creative responses socially because social conformity is a primary function of schooling and most will want very much to conform so they work their brain to better achieve this.
i wonder if the younger cohort may be more creative because they have yet to be hammered into the conformity schooling requires. they have some independence of thought lacking in the older groups and adults after years and decades of having this independence of thought systematically removed.
the older may show more creative responses socially because social conformity is a primary function of schooling and most will want very much to conform so they work their brain to better achieve this.
1
It all depends on your definition of "creativity." The authors are comparing some cute and ironic things little kids say to an absence of such cute things in adults, which truthfully is not very persuasive. One could even say that if certain adults ignore certain data and come to delusory conclusions, they're actually being more rather than less creative. It seems to me that our creativity does not lessen at all as we grow older. Every time we, say, read an article and create a mental image in our minds, we're being creative. Every time we see data and make an inference, we're being creative. Adult creativity is just different from child creativity.
4
'Cute' ideas in adults are quite common, we just tend to call them conspiracy theories.
As a teacher of 25 years, I have sharply noticed a drop in creativity. 11 and 12 year olds loved the challenges in my ancient history class of designing Greek temples for minor gods out of recycled materials, or developing their own pictograph languages. Today I get more moans and groans or "can I use clip art.." than cheers. Every once in a while though, I get an inquiring mind asking thought provoking questions or presenting divergently different solutions to open ended questions. With a background in art, I try to emphasize creativity infused with core academics. Perhaps our current focus on technology and a generation of tech savvy youth has stymied abilities to translate our ideas using art or hands on materials. I hear it's easier to "google it"....sigh.
6
Perhaps the authors are confusing free association with creativity?
11
Likelihood and progress of creativity in a person's life from childhood to old age?
I have an extremely pessimistic view of the possibility and progress of human creativity. Humans routinely consider themselves the conscious, intelligent creature, to be distinguished from virtually every other creature which is considered to be operating unconsciously, by instinct, but when we examine the I.Q. bell curve and how it falls off sharply toward the intelligent and examine what a horror so many lives of genius have been, my belief is that the human race is quite unconscious, instinctual, and that very little not only individual but collective consciousness has much effect on the course of human life.
What we need is a massive scientific project determining level of consciousness--ratio of consciousness, deliberate and creative action/instinct, unconsciousness--in both the individual member of each species and the species as a whole and to compare across species to determine especially just how conscious, deliberate, creative each person is of the human race and how much efforts toward consciousness, deliberate and creative action are entirely wasted and succumb to a majoritarian and largely instinctual and unconscious drive in our species.
We humans tend to think ourselves as vastly more conscious than say ants, but when we consider all the wasted genius of individuals we are probably on the whole--ratio of consciousness to unconsciousness--as instinctive as a nest of ants.
I have an extremely pessimistic view of the possibility and progress of human creativity. Humans routinely consider themselves the conscious, intelligent creature, to be distinguished from virtually every other creature which is considered to be operating unconsciously, by instinct, but when we examine the I.Q. bell curve and how it falls off sharply toward the intelligent and examine what a horror so many lives of genius have been, my belief is that the human race is quite unconscious, instinctual, and that very little not only individual but collective consciousness has much effect on the course of human life.
What we need is a massive scientific project determining level of consciousness--ratio of consciousness, deliberate and creative action/instinct, unconsciousness--in both the individual member of each species and the species as a whole and to compare across species to determine especially just how conscious, deliberate, creative each person is of the human race and how much efforts toward consciousness, deliberate and creative action are entirely wasted and succumb to a majoritarian and largely instinctual and unconscious drive in our species.
We humans tend to think ourselves as vastly more conscious than say ants, but when we consider all the wasted genius of individuals we are probably on the whole--ratio of consciousness to unconsciousness--as instinctive as a nest of ants.
Meh. Psycho-babble 101. "Stern and earnest realities of adult life." Seriously? Is there taxpayer money behind this line of research? I'm tempted to call this a clever post-modern self-parody but I doubt the authors have that much imagination.
7
At 65, I still find myself to be quite creative. Whether looking for a very good solution to problems related to my field of work (woodworking and design) or writing in interesting ways, play on words by example, to make a comment. Same when falling in love which I find to spark a creative boost. Quite a lot is fueled by the desire to find perfection. That does not go away.
1
There certainly is a disturbing trend towards integration and increased conformity in today's society. Despite the celebration and acceptance of our differences in physical and gender identities. We seem to be increasingly guided to think more alike and free speech and political correctness still seem a bit of a conundrum. I am not referring to hate speech that is blatantly offensive here. Our imagination is very unique and serves a purpose in the sciences as well. Our Intuition is also a personal, intellectual tool that has it's place in our society and very much academia. It is well known that quantum physics involves not just math formulas but also the witness to the experiment to be understood. Spirituaity is of the same context. For me personally it needs to be experienced. The answers do not all lie upon religion. With the Advent of AI, robotics we are in the sign of the times that we need humanism all the more.
8
Aging, sometimes, cannot be fun - but it's always better than the alternative.
3
That's allegedly why the artist Andrew Wyeth withdrew his son, Jamie, from public school after the sixth grade -- as Andrew himself had been withdrawn by his own father. Knowledge and socialization beyond that level, he believed, would reinforce conventional thinking, thereby thwarting creativity. Seems to have paid off for father and son.
1
Maintaining creativity could all be a matter of practice: Use it or lose it. As a young adult, I worked in big ad agencies. Each one had a Creative Department. The job was to think of new, persuasive and on-point ways to sell products and services. As often as not, this meant I'd have my feet up on my desk and be looking out a window and thinking of how to solve a client's problem in a way they hadn't seen a hundred times before. To people who didn't know better, it looked like I was just goofing off. These were usually the same people who got scared by ideas that were truly different. I don't work in advertising anymore. I'm a novelist who's been published both traditionally and independently. My creativity is still going strong at 66.
1
With media omnipotent in today's age, cliched, unimaginative thinking is more prevalent than in the days of our grandparents. So much "wisdom" I hear from people is regurgitated aphorisms repeated by media outlets. It's funny: Rote memorization may have been a far larger aspect of education 75 years ago, but, oddly enough, I think it served to enlarge the capacities of many a young brain. In recent decades imagination is stressed in American education, or at least paid lip-service. I have taught both creative writing classes, and I find that in the fiction classes there is a feeling among young adults now that creativity and spontaneity are all-important. But it often is a creativity not tethered to knowledge, experience, context, careful reasoning, research. My advice is often to think about a future story before you go to sleep, when you get up, during day-dreams, and then write an outline, take notes, ruminate about how characters might interact. In other words, prepare for creativity. Tend it like a garden. But often, that contradicts a modern version of what creative improvisation is about. I think at any age the left and right brains can work well together, but inspiration often depends on hard work.
31
Creativity in solving puzzles. The children and others could come up with a number of different explanations for how the machine worked, some creative, but overall I would guess that they also had a much wider range of utility. An engineer would probably start with a smaller set of explanations but they would also be more likely to contain the correct explanation; perhaps a certain mass triggered the light, objects in certain blocks, patterns produced by one or more blocks, conductivity of different surfaces, materials of different blocks, colors, combinations of reasons, etc.
Creativity in many activities like war, business, government, etc., often seems to be a mixture of being prepared, hard work, luck, as well as some measure of creativity. They are essentially different types of problems to be solved.
Creativity of expression at least initially appears to be something different, and it doesn’t seem to be as age dependent as the type of creativity required in the more technical disciplines. Beethoven finished the Ninth Symphony three years before his death.
The creativity associated with children seems to be one of being open minded, unbiased, and is a trait that is hard to retain or recover. By itself it seems to explain a lot of the political polarization and tribalism that people are experiencing globally.
Creativity in many activities like war, business, government, etc., often seems to be a mixture of being prepared, hard work, luck, as well as some measure of creativity. They are essentially different types of problems to be solved.
Creativity of expression at least initially appears to be something different, and it doesn’t seem to be as age dependent as the type of creativity required in the more technical disciplines. Beethoven finished the Ninth Symphony three years before his death.
The creativity associated with children seems to be one of being open minded, unbiased, and is a trait that is hard to retain or recover. By itself it seems to explain a lot of the political polarization and tribalism that people are experiencing globally.
This seems intuitively obvious from both the social aspect and the biochemical one - if you accept naturalism and/or pragmatism.
C.I.Lewis wrote The Mind and the World Order, a pragmatic version of Kantian dialectics, showing how we organize the world according to our Weltanschauung.
Then, there is the linguistic parallel. As a youngster, we are capable of all sort of phonetic pronunciations. As we grow older, some of that ability begins to recede. The joke about rolling your tongue or distinguishing 'l' and 'r' is real. That is why the theory about exposing young children with multiple languages
I suppose it is chaotic to bombard children with too many data streams, especially when their signals can be crossed, like learning German and French as a foreign language at exactly the same time (did try!)
The truth is the older we get, the harder we can unlearn some of these features.
C.I.Lewis wrote The Mind and the World Order, a pragmatic version of Kantian dialectics, showing how we organize the world according to our Weltanschauung.
Then, there is the linguistic parallel. As a youngster, we are capable of all sort of phonetic pronunciations. As we grow older, some of that ability begins to recede. The joke about rolling your tongue or distinguishing 'l' and 'r' is real. That is why the theory about exposing young children with multiple languages
I suppose it is chaotic to bombard children with too many data streams, especially when their signals can be crossed, like learning German and French as a foreign language at exactly the same time (did try!)
The truth is the older we get, the harder we can unlearn some of these features.
1
There would be no inventions or science without creativity. Creativity is science. Even the Chinese are starting to realise the importance of creativity for inventing new stuff in the world. Probably took them a while to realise this, what with them being a communist nation and a factory for the rest of the worlds inventions and patents.
I'm reminded of when my daughter was 3 or 4 years old and I asked her what she wanted for breakfast. "Macaroni!" she said. I told her that macaroni was lunch and asked again what she'd like for breakfast. She paused a second and said, "lunch!"
She's all grown up now with a child of her own. To my knowledge, she does not eat macaroni for breakfast.
She's all grown up now with a child of her own. To my knowledge, she does not eat macaroni for breakfast.
7
Ah, another postcard from Captain Obvious has slipped through the slot in the door.
As a 60 year old who has written and recorded music as an avocation off and on since my teens I can offer the following personal observations:
(1) As I've aged I increased my capacity to play a variety of instruments and can now create sounds that were hopelessly beyond my reach in my younger years.
(2) As I've aged I've increased my stamina and patience for putting together something that is difficult for me, that stretches my existing capabilities. It ain't always fun during the process but the result is very satisfying
(3) As I've aged, what I call my personal Random Access Memory has become more erratic. On some days it's great and on others it really isn't. If I wish to write lyrics that make non obvious connections among ideas or employ word play I have to give myself quite a bit more time to finish the song. Fortunately aging has given me item (2).
As a 60 year old who has written and recorded music as an avocation off and on since my teens I can offer the following personal observations:
(1) As I've aged I increased my capacity to play a variety of instruments and can now create sounds that were hopelessly beyond my reach in my younger years.
(2) As I've aged I've increased my stamina and patience for putting together something that is difficult for me, that stretches my existing capabilities. It ain't always fun during the process but the result is very satisfying
(3) As I've aged, what I call my personal Random Access Memory has become more erratic. On some days it's great and on others it really isn't. If I wish to write lyrics that make non obvious connections among ideas or employ word play I have to give myself quite a bit more time to finish the song. Fortunately aging has given me item (2).
7
So the unproven conclusion of the article, that we lose creativity in problem solving as we age, is stated as a given in the premise, and the "data" in several interesting studies is employed to justify declining creativity with advancing age.
Empirical evidence that says au contrare to the authors' conclusions:
Steve Jobs 45 when IPhone went into production.
Leonardo painted Mona Lisa at 50.
Einstein 38 General Theory of Relativity
Michelangelo 72 oversaw completion of St. Peter's Basilica, designed complex Campidoglio pavement
Shakespeare's best tragedy, Coriolanus written at 44
And then they're the "little people" whose lives are creative in unmeasured ways throughout life.
Empirical evidence that says au contrare to the authors' conclusions:
Steve Jobs 45 when IPhone went into production.
Leonardo painted Mona Lisa at 50.
Einstein 38 General Theory of Relativity
Michelangelo 72 oversaw completion of St. Peter's Basilica, designed complex Campidoglio pavement
Shakespeare's best tragedy, Coriolanus written at 44
And then they're the "little people" whose lives are creative in unmeasured ways throughout life.
9
I think you aren't illustrating the difference between creativity and competence in the way the authors have. I found this article fascinating.
Why is the Mona Lisa an example of creativity, as opposed to any of Leonardo's earlier, or later, paintings ? It may be his most famous work, but I doubt most experts, or even non expert, but nevertheless knowledgeable laymen,, would consider it his best painting. But when speaking of Leonardo and creativity, we are
pretty well at the zenith.
He experimented continuously, with sometimes disastrous results, as in "The Battle of Anghiari"
On the other hand, I think your choice of Coriolanus as Shakespeare's best tragedy is creative, indeed.
Why is the Mona Lisa an example of creativity, as opposed to any of Leonardo's earlier, or later, paintings ? It may be his most famous work, but I doubt most experts, or even non expert, but nevertheless knowledgeable laymen,, would consider it his best painting. But when speaking of Leonardo and creativity, we are
pretty well at the zenith.
He experimented continuously, with sometimes disastrous results, as in "The Battle of Anghiari"
On the other hand, I think your choice of Coriolanus as Shakespeare's best tragedy is creative, indeed.
4
Matt my brother:
I wasn't positing Mona as the paragon of Lenny's stuff; didn't need to for the point. It is an amazing work of art that was accomplished late in a 15th century person's life.
Similarly with Mike. The best thing he ever did in my opinion was the cosmic Study for the Libyan Sybil, and I've seen nearly all of his publicly viewable works in person. It's a little 8 in beauty, and when viewed up close, makes the viewer feel as he is looking into the face of God. Mike was only 40 something when he did it so I guess it doesn't count for being creative as he aged.
I wasn't positing Mona as the paragon of Lenny's stuff; didn't need to for the point. It is an amazing work of art that was accomplished late in a 15th century person's life.
Similarly with Mike. The best thing he ever did in my opinion was the cosmic Study for the Libyan Sybil, and I've seen nearly all of his publicly viewable works in person. It's a little 8 in beauty, and when viewed up close, makes the viewer feel as he is looking into the face of God. Mike was only 40 something when he did it so I guess it doesn't count for being creative as he aged.
This is very interesting. I have always thought that the empty slate of a child has so much more potential. I think as adults, we can learn from these sorts of studies and maybe not rely so much on what's already in our cups, but consider things that we've never thought or heard of before.
11
Lenora,
Why would an empty slate have more potential than a slate with a whole lot of tested useful connections on it?
'Course my Lordship once won a T-shirt in a competition asking for synonyms for "stupid." My Lordship's entry was "has great potential."
Why would an empty slate have more potential than a slate with a whole lot of tested useful connections on it?
'Course my Lordship once won a T-shirt in a competition asking for synonyms for "stupid." My Lordship's entry was "has great potential."
1
Sowhat becomes of the child? They grow into adults wih full cups.
What do we do with the contents of our cups? And who decides what are the best contents?
Its no revelatory insight to claim children are emply slates,which is not 100% true, thats why we teach them to fill the slate, and/or cups.
What do we do with the contents of our cups? And who decides what are the best contents?
Its no revelatory insight to claim children are emply slates,which is not 100% true, thats why we teach them to fill the slate, and/or cups.
Sorry, am I missing something? I get the experiments published in the prestigious PNAS, etc. But why is it being called "creativity"? I would like to know (might get that from the paper, of course) what is the author's definition.
6
Has this study been replicated? Or is it just one more singular study presented as the final word in a single issue. Why are articles like this published without scientific validation?
6
I don't think this is a peer reviewed article. I think most readers are aware of that and see it more as an interesting thing to contemplate and certainly don't take it for fact. Not that any research is really fact. Especially when not replicated many times over.
4
I agree. This article is so short, and so lacking in detail, that their conclusion seems to be a pre-experimental bias that we are asked to accept blindly. Certainly, the scope of the study is so narrow, that expanding its conclusions to the scale they do is not justified.
Anecdotally, in the film industry where I work, there is an assumption that youth is more energetic and capable of radical, engaging filmmaking. And at the Maine Media Workshops where I teach, teenage filmmakers often embarrass older professionals with the passion of their inexperenced vision. On the other hand, along comes Spielberg doing cinematically radical Private Ryan later in his career, and George Miller (along with 'retired' cinematographer John Seale) making Mad Max at the age of 70 that is jaw-droppingly radical and inventive.
The bottom line is that all 'generalizations' are at best descriptions of the median point of a bell curve, and there will always be outliers who break the rules. What would be useful for researchers to investigate is how to nurture and encourage creativity at all ages.
Anecdotally, in the film industry where I work, there is an assumption that youth is more energetic and capable of radical, engaging filmmaking. And at the Maine Media Workshops where I teach, teenage filmmakers often embarrass older professionals with the passion of their inexperenced vision. On the other hand, along comes Spielberg doing cinematically radical Private Ryan later in his career, and George Miller (along with 'retired' cinematographer John Seale) making Mad Max at the age of 70 that is jaw-droppingly radical and inventive.
The bottom line is that all 'generalizations' are at best descriptions of the median point of a bell curve, and there will always be outliers who break the rules. What would be useful for researchers to investigate is how to nurture and encourage creativity at all ages.
3
I like what Einstein said "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." Adults can embrace this-the brain never stops growing.
10
My father is 80. Last year, at the ripe age of 79, he started a theater company and became its director, staging his own plays. He had never been a director before and he is excellent. Too bad he started so late. Two years ago. he started a cultural newspaper, tiny circulation, but in print, where he writes various columns. He writes every day for a few hours (wakes up at 5 am) and told me that with each decade he has grown in creativity and depth. His memory has gotten better with age. He will be creative until his body will allow him. I am myself creative, and I recall that for many years I have experienced a block to go through to the other side, which means to develop and execute a complex artistic idea. In my case, the breakthrough happened at 35, with fits and starts in my 20s. I was a creative child in the sense that I had a more unbridled imagination and I loved to draw and I had a six sense that I later forgot, but with time my creativity has improved and expanded on many levels.
8
"Don't eat vegetables" was not merely creative. It was also complete nonsense.
Adults did not come up with such total nonsense as a 4-year old. That too is part of the mix.
It is not just knowing more. It is knowing how to think. It is knowing more what is nonsense.
This may cause premature rejection of ideas that could be explored to a more creative solution. However, it has the big advantage of avoiding nonsense.
So, talk to you kids. Let everyone talk in a team. Be open. But don't think label nonsense as "creative" because that is only part of what it is.
Adults did not come up with such total nonsense as a 4-year old. That too is part of the mix.
It is not just knowing more. It is knowing how to think. It is knowing more what is nonsense.
This may cause premature rejection of ideas that could be explored to a more creative solution. However, it has the big advantage of avoiding nonsense.
So, talk to you kids. Let everyone talk in a team. Be open. But don't think label nonsense as "creative" because that is only part of what it is.
15
As we get older parts and perhaps the whole of us begin to wear down until the inevitable system failure in whatever form it takes place.
I am not sure that creativity dissipates that much, at lest from personal experience in my particular endeavors which require "creativity".
However, it gets a lot harder to do anything about it.
A great idea is not enough.
One needs the strength, energy, perseverance, health etc. to follow through.
Just as an aside though, while many of the most creative works in natural science and life sciences are by the young, many of the best works of history have been written by the not so young. Their creativity was just fine.
I am not sure that creativity dissipates that much, at lest from personal experience in my particular endeavors which require "creativity".
However, it gets a lot harder to do anything about it.
A great idea is not enough.
One needs the strength, energy, perseverance, health etc. to follow through.
Just as an aside though, while many of the most creative works in natural science and life sciences are by the young, many of the best works of history have been written by the not so young. Their creativity was just fine.
7
My father is a highly accomplished scientist. As he is moving into his eighties, he is finding his memory and technical abilities are diminishing. This I think would relate to the "exploitation" thinking referred to. He has ceased his research and writing as he can no longer organize his thoughts as wells as he feels is demanded. However, he still reads and reviews work in his field. He has told me that he now finds his thinking much more creative, which I think relates to "exploration" thinking, and that he wishes he had had this capacity when he was younger. He muses that this might have led him to consider solutions outside of what in retrospect seems like a too narrow focus. I am a daughter who regrets not following my father's footsteps, as despite a love of science I always compared my intellectual ability to his and felt inadequate. I have had my career as a "creative" in the visual arts, and so I find this confession of his unbelievably poignant.
26
You tell a bit of my story too, though I never wanted to be a physicist, and was no good at it. He's now 93, and describes the problems you do, though not so much the successes (he was always creative; I will share that with him). I ended up in art as well. Thanks!
3
I agree with you Susan, fear of failure is a black ghost that governs, and sometimes dooms our lifes, in science as well as elsewhere. All must be done if not to eradicate it -- which is impossible -- at least to mitigate it, to take away the drama. So that children, students, and young people can believe themselves early on, even when confronted with wonderful geniuses like your dad.
I think that your father is letting the lower mental data processing part of his being to become quite and is realizing that the other part, the part that sees into the formless cosmos is being heard much more clearly now.
If I might go back 2500 tears to a man called Socrates who though advanced in years said my search for truth leads me to realize that the more I supposedly know the more there is to learn.
Life for the middle class is about affirmation and attainment. Each step along the way brings us closer to the finish.
The search for truth is an endless journey and every step along the route puts the end two steps further away.
America is in trouble because we have fallen in love with people who know the answers and have dismissed the people who know the right questions.
Life for the middle class is about affirmation and attainment. Each step along the way brings us closer to the finish.
The search for truth is an endless journey and every step along the route puts the end two steps further away.
America is in trouble because we have fallen in love with people who know the answers and have dismissed the people who know the right questions.
11
These do not seem like good indicators of what I'd consider creativity. Flexibility in problem solving perhaps, but not creativity.
I also skimmed through the paper to see more about the sampling. Did not see what the sample sizes are or how they are drawn -- there is much, much more to this than just age ranges, given what we know about the impact of income and social class on achievement in school.
I also skimmed through the paper to see more about the sampling. Did not see what the sample sizes are or how they are drawn -- there is much, much more to this than just age ranges, given what we know about the impact of income and social class on achievement in school.
14
Creativity and Curiosity both increase with increase from childhood to adulthood through adolescence but it takes a peak at a particular age, then, it begins to decline. It can be slowed down through exercise, workout, yoga and meditation with positive thoughts.
"Creativity and Curiosity both increase with increase from childhood to adulthood through adolescence but it takes a peak at a particular age, then, it begins to decline." While this comment may be attractive to reductionist thinkers who look through anecdotes to come up with aphorisms, it's simply not correct. There are many elements involved in creation, invention, insight, understanding and wisdom. As a business person, I've heard the phrase "Good ideas are a dime a dozen." The phrase following that introduction will be different base up the commenting community.
2
The kind of thinking by the authors and addressed in the experiments may, or may not, be the best applicable to creative thinking in practical and social problems, but it is irrelevant to art - which is what we usually think of as the purest creative thought and action. It is of course true that "as we grow older, we know more." But artists TRY TO FIND "evidence that contradicts what we already think." Creativity may decline or waver, or change in nature, for some artists, but it is not linked to age. (And btw, the so-called loss of childhood creativity in art has to do mainly with our education customs, which mostly ignore pure art and creativity, often denying them.)
Dana Gordon
Dana Gordon
6
Just what we need -- more support for ageism and more reasons for people to decide not to hire older people.
As other commentators note, these measures are fairly arbitrary. Applied creativity is quite different from asking childlike questions. These children may seem creative simply because they don't know how the world works. You'll find lots of adult style creativity among those giving reasons to support our current president.
As other commentators note, these measures are fairly arbitrary. Applied creativity is quite different from asking childlike questions. These children may seem creative simply because they don't know how the world works. You'll find lots of adult style creativity among those giving reasons to support our current president.
33
I taught drawing for 19 years, and worked with these problems to help my students remove blocks they had been taught in school, about success, conformity, and taking risks.
This article completely ignores the socialization process of school. Conformity becomes one of the top goals of both students and teachers.
In my case, I worked hard, and somewhat successfully, to break the bonds of fear of failure in taking the risk of telling the truth about what one sees. Describing what one sees doesn't involve learning some "secret" or "formula" but rather learning to let one's hands do their best to describe what one's eyes observe. Fear of failure was one of the biggest impediments to curiosity and observation.
This article completely ignores the socialization process of school. Conformity becomes one of the top goals of both students and teachers.
In my case, I worked hard, and somewhat successfully, to break the bonds of fear of failure in taking the risk of telling the truth about what one sees. Describing what one sees doesn't involve learning some "secret" or "formula" but rather learning to let one's hands do their best to describe what one's eyes observe. Fear of failure was one of the biggest impediments to curiosity and observation.
14
I'd like to emphasize that "failure" is a *very* important part of learning. Avoiding it closes us off to the best in ourselves and in others.
4
Interesting, but with enormous leaps of speculation about the roles of prior knowledge and experience in liberating or squelching creativity. Just as a lack of knowledge can make a kid more likely to explore odd explanations, so too can a solid base of information and know how be a springboard to new ways of thinking. Poets and artists, dancers and composers evolve splendid innovations on a foundation of a lifetime gathering knowledge and experience.
6
Well said Victor.
The obvious quote to start this whole piece would be Picasso -
"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."
He could be as technical as Ingres or whoever he wanted to be. He then innovated off of that very strong foundation and gained knowledge.
Some could argue that Picasso and Matisse were their most innovative in artistic middle to late age.
The obvious quote to start this whole piece would be Picasso -
"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."
He could be as technical as Ingres or whoever he wanted to be. He then innovated off of that very strong foundation and gained knowledge.
Some could argue that Picasso and Matisse were their most innovative in artistic middle to late age.
This experiment does not seem to approach the problem from the standpoint of human induction (inductive reasoning - how the human mind makes decisions).
As we get older, we form more and more 'heuristics' (rules of thumb) to adjudicate the decision making process. These are based on experience. Thus, the older brain will often seem to be less creative, but will often make better choices.
As a product designer, I've noted that the new kids come up with some very creative designs, but that are rejected by the older designers as inappropriate. But it's not because the more experienced designers never thought of them; rather, they rejected them (for cause). For example, this happens all the time when it comes to regulatory requirements. Thus, a design may seem to be more creative, but it will be rejected because it violates a fire-protection rule.
For example, the younger creative mind will think up a new and creative way to put siding on a building. But the regulations may prevent it from being used on buildings more than five stories high, because of its flame retardant properties. Hence, we end up with skyscrapers in England burning down.
As we get older, we form more and more 'heuristics' (rules of thumb) to adjudicate the decision making process. These are based on experience. Thus, the older brain will often seem to be less creative, but will often make better choices.
As a product designer, I've noted that the new kids come up with some very creative designs, but that are rejected by the older designers as inappropriate. But it's not because the more experienced designers never thought of them; rather, they rejected them (for cause). For example, this happens all the time when it comes to regulatory requirements. Thus, a design may seem to be more creative, but it will be rejected because it violates a fire-protection rule.
For example, the younger creative mind will think up a new and creative way to put siding on a building. But the regulations may prevent it from being used on buildings more than five stories high, because of its flame retardant properties. Hence, we end up with skyscrapers in England burning down.
28
I once read that the great sin of youth is to think that experience is worth nothing; the great sin of age is to think it is worth everything. A strikingly phrased generalization, but over-generalization doesn't always create anything but a moment of pleasure as we recognize our prejudices.
So: Who says that Josie's or Sally's personal traits are the "usual" explanation? Who says it's more creative to think skateboards are safer than scooters?
It's true that great breakthroughs are the product of unusual thinking. But it is also true that there are infinitely many wrong answers to any individual question.
So: Who says that Josie's or Sally's personal traits are the "usual" explanation? Who says it's more creative to think skateboards are safer than scooters?
It's true that great breakthroughs are the product of unusual thinking. But it is also true that there are infinitely many wrong answers to any individual question.
9
The assertion "as we grow older, we know more" contradicts the ancient Socratic paradox, "All I know is that I know nothing." Nevertheless, life’s experience seems to confirm your proposition universally, with notable exceptions.
However, the fundamental provocation remains intact: How do we tap into creative and exceptional ways of thinking as we mature? Undoubtedly, pedagogical philosophies have much to say about it. For instance, the original Montessori based on training of the senses and pedagogical objects remains valid, beyond elementary schooling, for the work of a scientist conducting empirical experiments in her laboratory for testing hypotheses: findings may be serendipitous and exceptional if sensory observations remain acute and unfiltered; and, in response ideas or judgments are adaptive and flexible.
I have spent forty years teaching architecture. There is a positive bias in the discipline valuing creativity and originality. The question is how to deepen the search beyond superficial and capricious expressions. Some foundational tenets can promote that search, a basic one is “heuristics” — finding through individual experience rather than accepting preexisting normative thinking [Pestalozzi].
In my own endeavors, I adopted two simple yet powerful maxims:
• Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. —Novalis
• Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. —Beckett
However, the fundamental provocation remains intact: How do we tap into creative and exceptional ways of thinking as we mature? Undoubtedly, pedagogical philosophies have much to say about it. For instance, the original Montessori based on training of the senses and pedagogical objects remains valid, beyond elementary schooling, for the work of a scientist conducting empirical experiments in her laboratory for testing hypotheses: findings may be serendipitous and exceptional if sensory observations remain acute and unfiltered; and, in response ideas or judgments are adaptive and flexible.
I have spent forty years teaching architecture. There is a positive bias in the discipline valuing creativity and originality. The question is how to deepen the search beyond superficial and capricious expressions. Some foundational tenets can promote that search, a basic one is “heuristics” — finding through individual experience rather than accepting preexisting normative thinking [Pestalozzi].
In my own endeavors, I adopted two simple yet powerful maxims:
• Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange. —Novalis
• Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. —Beckett
25
"the ancient Socratic paradox, "All I know is that I know nothing.""
Like all "paradoxical" things, this comment from Plato/Socrates is perfectly clear. It is only a paradox to those who do not understand it. It has to do with knowing what "nothing" is. No materialistically polarized individual will ever get it. So of course those who where running Athens had to murder Socrates as a danger to the youth of the time. Sounds like a familiar scenario that many Thinkers including the one we call Christ have encountered.
Like all "paradoxical" things, this comment from Plato/Socrates is perfectly clear. It is only a paradox to those who do not understand it. It has to do with knowing what "nothing" is. No materialistically polarized individual will ever get it. So of course those who where running Athens had to murder Socrates as a danger to the youth of the time. Sounds like a familiar scenario that many Thinkers including the one we call Christ have encountered.
"We become too set in our ways to change."
This is too final an indictment on human behavior. I believe there is a stage before this: We become too comfortable with what we know to realize that we may need to interrupt previous learning or unlearn it.
As a facilitator, I often encounter this mindset and have found it helpful to ask people to identify the conditions that supported their original learning and then to assess the present against those same conditions. Often they see that the times have changed and that their thinking might need to as well.
Regardless, before writing someone off as too set in their ways to change, try to increase their awareness of the potential need to change and/or consider alternative thinking. It may pay off.
This is too final an indictment on human behavior. I believe there is a stage before this: We become too comfortable with what we know to realize that we may need to interrupt previous learning or unlearn it.
As a facilitator, I often encounter this mindset and have found it helpful to ask people to identify the conditions that supported their original learning and then to assess the present against those same conditions. Often they see that the times have changed and that their thinking might need to as well.
Regardless, before writing someone off as too set in their ways to change, try to increase their awareness of the potential need to change and/or consider alternative thinking. It may pay off.
1
Not all thinking is "set in". Sometimes it was correct to begin with in the case of morality or patriotism. It's the decline of creativity that is troublesome.
There is a 'negative' version of the explore/exploit transition into adulthood, which is that we are socialized to conform. Despite being the most open society ever, we still find value in being part of the herd, and people taking psychological tests don't feel entirely insulated from public judgement, for sound reasons.
Also, there is a simple way to temporarily regain childhood creativity, which many adult creatives use (and misuse): drugs
Also, there is a simple way to temporarily regain childhood creativity, which many adult creatives use (and misuse): drugs
5
As death nears we look more and more for a "magical" fix. There is none and anything we create will decay and rot, just as we are. The science of the universe is pushed away and the hopes and wishes of youth seems vain and useless. Hard work and reason have failed to answer the nihilism that results from long life and long desperation. We see no gain in creating and hope for the future. These conclusions are erroneous. Creativity is the greatness of life and the gift we leave we our children, and all children. False hopes not met is not tragedy, it is reality. The cure to nihilism is belief in the truth, science, beauty, and adventure. A belief in hard work and reason and the gifts freely given to the future come along with all created artifacts of man. Write, think, build, teach, learn, and come grow old with all of us, the best is yet to be.
13
that was beautiful.
2
Well said Roger.
When I was in college one of the members of the fraternity had more good ideas than all the other members of the house combined. He also had more bad ideas than all the other members combined. With proper monitoring his ideas were a valuable asset; without proper monitoring his ideas were a flaming disaster. At what point do you factor in functionality when you discuss creativity?
6
It depends on what you call creativity. Children come up with impossible ideas that are refreshing - but impossible. They have no intellectual boundaries. Ideas that are not based on reality are endless. I am in my sixties and am still very creative, but I can imagine a time when I just won't care to bother any longer.
2
That's a clever child, and I love how his imagination is free from constraints. But I don't think serious creativity necessarily diminishes with age. I feel more prepared than ever to be a true artist, and at 59, wish I had freedom from my exhausting job and commute to do it.
6
Creative expression is an exercise in problem-solving: how we might effectively transmit a thought or feeling through a chosen medium. And as we grow older, we realize many problems are analogues of ones we've already solved - that truly "new" problems are few and far between.
Aging can be a hindrance to problem-solving if we're tempted to sacrifice curiosity for convenience, or due to physiological issues beyond our control. More often, experience with past problems offers incalculable insight into solving their contemporary analogues - insight which can't be gleaned from books, Wikipedia, or internet access.
Aging can be a hindrance to problem-solving if we're tempted to sacrifice curiosity for convenience, or due to physiological issues beyond our control. More often, experience with past problems offers incalculable insight into solving their contemporary analogues - insight which can't be gleaned from books, Wikipedia, or internet access.
1
It is a well known fact of life that great physicists seem to have their most brilliant concepts before they reach the age of 30-35. Noble Laureate Wolfgang Pauli said, "Ach, I know too much". Great mathematicians seem to live forever, on the other hand. Nobel Laureate Stephen Weinberg once said, "Einstein could have spent the last half of his life just fishing."
4
@James Kennedy,
great anybody is likely to do wonderful things throughout their life (barring dementia).
Although, I have heard it said of both mathematicians and physicists that their best work is fairly early in life.
(I am only talking about theoreticians, not experimentalist.)
(Of course, I am pretty much an ignoramus, more and more aware of my ignorance.)
great anybody is likely to do wonderful things throughout their life (barring dementia).
Although, I have heard it said of both mathematicians and physicists that their best work is fairly early in life.
(I am only talking about theoreticians, not experimentalist.)
(Of course, I am pretty much an ignoramus, more and more aware of my ignorance.)
1
The examples described may or may not be relevant. It depends on the criteria used to judge a "creative" answer. This is sort of feel-good, wishy washy, rainbows and butterflies science (?) or intellectual thought (not).
9
It is useful,in addition, to consider that most of us have been educated, and trained, to be aware, perceive, expect, think, feel, judge, make decisions which we implement, or not, learn from, or not, within a linear, cause and effect reality-frameworks of certainty, predictability and control over processes and their outcomes.All of which is humanly constructed as a belief system.Fed by answers differing in levels and qualities of facts, fictions and fantasies.Stimulated by valanced success and efforts to avoid - failure in an either/or world of binary banality in which " fear of failure," and "failure blindness," limit needed efforts for ongoing quests inherent in relevant questioning as well as acknowledging ranges and spectrums.Nonlinear and multidimensional ones!In which all issues are not problems.And all problems are not resolvable, even as we need to respond. For all sorts of personal and systemic reasons.Considering,in our flawed human efforts, and limited, relevant, human, and nonhuman, resources, that our efforts, or lack of them, operate within interacting uncertainties, randomness, and lack of total controls.And as each of us moves from types,levels, and qualities of relevant,as well as irrelevant data, to derived knowing.On to constructed understandings.Not often achieving, and experiencing wisdom and living wisely,however defined.We are challenged daily by gaps in both knowing and availability of needed tools.Which can result in willful blindness,ignorance.
1
The example cited at the top of the article is very weak, and not a sign of creativity. It is just a naive solution, based on a false assumption. I an adult wouldn;t have made it because it doesn't hold water, not because they lack creativity. When I was a kid, my creativity showed in different ways, I made up full stories, staged naval battles in the bathtub, etc. I also think creativity increases with age and becomes more complex.
18
right on -this commentary is nonsense which shows how educated professionals can be trapped in their own immature logic.
If STEM based invention of novel and unique solutions is one measure of creativity than one certainly peaks mid life.
1
How does Picasso fit into this thesis?
12
Could the awakening of social world exploration in the teen years suggest the earlier ages had inadequate social experience to even operate in the exploratory mode?
Creativity can increase with age. There is an expression for such folks "born old, died young"
7
As I have grown older the norms and boundaries of my responsibility puts me with in the confinement of tested and tried methods. And that's what kills the luxury of exploration, at least, among adult demographics. I have been working since last 15 years in different set of environments and most of projects , researches or tasks i have been involved into, always come with pre defined risks and benefits and allowable boundaries to be a part of exploration. And in last moments, we end up thinking more of an exploitation bullets just to make a agreeable point. Young kids have luxury of time and adults don't. Adults pay a big price for mistakes than the young kids and teenager. So, after effect of failure pushes adults to be risk averse than the risk takers. Basically, older folks have already played their chips.
2
The author confuses childhood creativity with adult creativity. Children lack experience and critical thinking skills. That is in part why they get caught in lies. Adults make much better liars. There are whole industries built on lying. Finance, politics, advertising are examples of spinning straw into gold. Although creativity can produce some wonderful things it has a dark side.
4
Picture a mother approached by her child with a stick figure drawing or lumps of clay depicting a complex scene as she patiently listens to the explanation. Encouraging & developmentally important to the child, but let's not make too much of those efforts beyond the household environs.
Reveled creativity is as much linked to opportunistic guile & self promotion in adulthood as to talent. Case in point, John Cage & Jackson Pollock.
Reveled creativity is as much linked to opportunistic guile & self promotion in adulthood as to talent. Case in point, John Cage & Jackson Pollock.
3
Sorry but I do not think this study was testing "creativity" at all. Ask anyone who creates art/literature. What this study MAY be testing is mental plasticity, which is altogether different.
Creativity is about concentrating on inspirations (which can be fleeting or profound and many people cannot do any of that at all) and THEN following thru with a result of some sort (it can be good or mediocre it doesnt matter it is still a creative act).
Creativity is about concentrating on inspirations (which can be fleeting or profound and many people cannot do any of that at all) and THEN following thru with a result of some sort (it can be good or mediocre it doesnt matter it is still a creative act).
49
Not sure I am grasping the intended concept. Sure, children are more free in the brain to respond at will- i guess this is a type of creativity- adults process and contemplate etc etc then veto thoughts/ideas/words- thus stunting sponteneity- this is a general concept that I am not sure has tremendous bearing on more complex creative activty
14
Unusual article for two well educated people to post. How valid, actually, was the test they described? How broad? For every four year old who comes up with the 'creative' idea, there are quite a few more who never come out with such remarks. The funny, creative remark by itself does not predict the potential creativity of four year olds. Or teens, or senior citizens. Creativity comes in all shapes and sizes, in all ages, and under all kinds of different circumstances. It's incumbent on us to keep our own minds open to the recognition of the genius of others. It's all around us, but it often goes unnoticed because we think we know things that we don't. The truly creative person stays very aware of the enormous body of the unknown.
7
perhaps they should have added a last factor: sleep. As a lifelong creative thing maker in severall media, i have to say that stepping away, then stepping back, to the conundrum at hand always and i do mean Always provides me with fresh thought on the subject, be it in a visual, verbal, social or intellectual area.
6
I find creativity increases with age, if for no other reason than an adult can resist other people's opinions and use their knowledge in new ways.
Also, I think there is a significant difference between imaginative thinking and creative thinking. For example, I can imagine future travelers of the universe doing so at the speed of light by transforming themselves temporarily into photons, but there is nothing creative about that thought unless I'm working on the physics of that transformation, or including the idea in my science fiction novel. As Buckminster Fuller pointed out, ideas are a dime a dozen, but very few people are creative enough to act on them.
Also, I think there is a significant difference between imaginative thinking and creative thinking. For example, I can imagine future travelers of the universe doing so at the speed of light by transforming themselves temporarily into photons, but there is nothing creative about that thought unless I'm working on the physics of that transformation, or including the idea in my science fiction novel. As Buckminster Fuller pointed out, ideas are a dime a dozen, but very few people are creative enough to act on them.
57
Isn't creativity present in taking another opinion (or critique) and adjusting to it or adapting in perhaps a new and different way? I don't disagree, but I think it is harder to grow up than to grow old.
I don't buy it. Picasso died as an old man with crayons in his hand.
74
First law of reasoned rebuttal: Don't start with individual examples.
If a study provides a population of 20 people (random selection, double blind, replicability etc) then the rebuttal can only be with an even larger population... unless you can identify a flaw in the methodology.
If a study provides a population of 20 people (random selection, double blind, replicability etc) then the rebuttal can only be with an even larger population... unless you can identify a flaw in the methodology.
2
There's a difference between being prolific and creative. By the time he died, Picasso was a machine churning out "Picassos", his creativity long expired.
"Why does creativity generally tend to decline as we age?"
My belief is that happens because that is how Mother Nature designed it and wants it to be. She finds change and evolution amusing. She has no further use for us as we age, and we therefore are nothing more than bags of atoms awaiting recycling. We exist temporarily for the amusement of Mother Nature, really for nothing else. We like to pretend otherwise.
My belief is that happens because that is how Mother Nature designed it and wants it to be. She finds change and evolution amusing. She has no further use for us as we age, and we therefore are nothing more than bags of atoms awaiting recycling. We exist temporarily for the amusement of Mother Nature, really for nothing else. We like to pretend otherwise.
4
I'm a sculptor & painter. I remember in my 40's I was overly concerned that my creativity would never be as prolific as it was in my earlier adult years. I've come to realize that for myself, I can still create, but it's different -- more focused on my own path and voice as an artist, and less prone to being influenced by anything and everything that I observe. For what it's worth, now that I'm in my 60's, it feels like my creative nature is following its own natural evolution, and I'm enjoying it.
27
I'm enjoying the discussion this article has started. So many interesting thoughts on age, intellect, attitude. I'd just like to add that the authors don't define creativity but start their study and therefore their article, with an assumption about what demonstrates creativity. The view is too small, too closed. And manifests a baseline of human exceptionalism. For the big picture, look to nature.
6
Define creativity. The examples suggested and the possible solutions provided are only viewed as creative if the author says they are creative.
40
I'm 63. When it comes to the social problem described, my experience in life would lead me to simply say that you haven't given me enough information to come up with an explanation. If you asked me to do so anyway, I would probably throw out a host of explanations--including that there might be something wrong with the scooter or that the skateboard was unusually cool whereas the scooter was an old person's scooter. Is this because I've maintained my creativity or is it because I've thoroughly learned the lesson that reality is as simple as you think?
4
We think of the Gopnik grandchild as being creative when he says "don't eat vegetables (if you want to be a kid again), but really, he is opposing a myth to reality as opposed to science. We have all been taught to abandon our myths in favor of science, and now we are being told that we have become less creative?
Perhaps Science will come to a new appreciation of mythology. Wouldn't that be great?
Perhaps Science will come to a new appreciation of mythology. Wouldn't that be great?
5
"Perhaps Science will come to a new appreciation of mythology. Wouldn't that be great?"-Carol Ellkins
It already has: Myths impart unverifiable/tautological meanings to events which keep people busy and/or optimistic until they die. Results may vary. Rinse. Repeat.
Yuval Noah Harari is a useful reporter on the process.
It already has: Myths impart unverifiable/tautological meanings to events which keep people busy and/or optimistic until they die. Results may vary. Rinse. Repeat.
Yuval Noah Harari is a useful reporter on the process.
Betty Edwards' book "Drawing on Creativity" is a wonderful exploration of the creative process - bouncing back a forth between "right" and "left" brain functions. The concept of right/left brain activities is not, perhaps, correct, but creativity is finding novel combinations of intuition, perception, and logic - at any age.
For myself, at 67, I find the more I engage in creative endeavors, more endeavors become creative across the spectrum of day to day chores, physical activity, and expression...fanciful in many ways both the same and different from childhood whimsy.
For myself, at 67, I find the more I engage in creative endeavors, more endeavors become creative across the spectrum of day to day chores, physical activity, and expression...fanciful in many ways both the same and different from childhood whimsy.
6
While these kinds of explorations certainly satisfy the curiosity, they make regular people think more about intelligence and creativity as kind of competition. It makes the actual results produced appear less important.
The truth is, it’s not really important who has more creative ability or less. More creativity doesn’t necessarily produce stuff that’s more wonderful, and less creativity doesn’t necessarily produce duller stuff. If this was true, how would the most wonderful expressions and songs produced by simple village folk and shepherds?A beautiful story, a great expression, a beautiful painting, very useful scientific insight -- these do not necessarily need unusually powerful thinking. These just need thinking.
Everybody needs to simply know that working with what they have is all that's needed. If you’re interested in something and have the curiosity and tenacity to keep after it, you will eventually probably come up with something very good. That makes your life worthwhile, and the results help everyone.
If you ask me, there is no such special thing as creativity or intelligence, at least not a thing that would be useful for regular people to know about. Lots of below-average people can be very creative; they only need to find something to like, and keep after it.
The truth is, it’s not really important who has more creative ability or less. More creativity doesn’t necessarily produce stuff that’s more wonderful, and less creativity doesn’t necessarily produce duller stuff. If this was true, how would the most wonderful expressions and songs produced by simple village folk and shepherds?A beautiful story, a great expression, a beautiful painting, very useful scientific insight -- these do not necessarily need unusually powerful thinking. These just need thinking.
Everybody needs to simply know that working with what they have is all that's needed. If you’re interested in something and have the curiosity and tenacity to keep after it, you will eventually probably come up with something very good. That makes your life worthwhile, and the results help everyone.
If you ask me, there is no such special thing as creativity or intelligence, at least not a thing that would be useful for regular people to know about. Lots of below-average people can be very creative; they only need to find something to like, and keep after it.
9
"they only need to find something to like, and keep after it." That's a secret everyone should learn.
This article starts with a really shallow assumption "How does the ability to come up with unusual ideas change as we grow older?" The fact is that it doesn't. There is zero evidence that children "creativity" outstrips adults. What the child actually meant by his comment is seriously open for discussion. How the adult interpreted it was the adults opinion. The "ingeniousness" here is not the child's. It is the writers twisting the child's comment to support the lame proposition. Actually it is not that "ingeniousness". It's kind of lame.
There is nothing creative going on in this article. There is a lot of data processing to support a lame thesis.
Creativity requires thinking. And there are not two kinds of thinking. Neither the exploration and exploitation of the computer scientists is thinking. Both are data processing or what is called not-thinking.
Briefly, Creativity or thinking involves the moving of intuited comprehensions of Cosmic Principles from the formless or data-less dimensions of Reality into some kind of form that will communicate to those in the world of data what was touched and comprehended about Reality in a formless dimension of Truth.
Data processing will not get you into these dimensions.
What shuts down the creative power with which every human is born is the cultural imposition of not-thinking or data processing on the mental state and the simultaneous rejection of the imagination and the existence of a multidimensional cosmos.
There is nothing creative going on in this article. There is a lot of data processing to support a lame thesis.
Creativity requires thinking. And there are not two kinds of thinking. Neither the exploration and exploitation of the computer scientists is thinking. Both are data processing or what is called not-thinking.
Briefly, Creativity or thinking involves the moving of intuited comprehensions of Cosmic Principles from the formless or data-less dimensions of Reality into some kind of form that will communicate to those in the world of data what was touched and comprehended about Reality in a formless dimension of Truth.
Data processing will not get you into these dimensions.
What shuts down the creative power with which every human is born is the cultural imposition of not-thinking or data processing on the mental state and the simultaneous rejection of the imagination and the existence of a multidimensional cosmos.
49
I am an engineer, and one of the problems that older engineers (like myself) have is that while I have a lot of knowledge, a lot of that knowledge is about things that have gone wrong in my 40 years as an engineer. I think that sometimes dampens my creativity and the joy I used to have of "pushing the envelope". Little kids are fearless when they wander near the edge of a staircase - because they've never fallen down the stairs!
10
Did you test women also? and separately?
Many, many women writers don't begin to take off until the post-menopausal years, or until they have the time and the freedom to write. As a post-menopausal woman myself, I can assure you that I am more full energy / ideas/ metaphors/so-called "creativity" than I was at any previous time of my life, and I bet there are many others out there like me. By next year I will have published four books (with excellent presses) in five years.
I'm full of beans.
I don't accept the results of your study, that "creativity" "declines with age" or that "We become too set in our ways to change" At All At All. Go back to the drawing boards and do the study with just women.
Many, many women writers don't begin to take off until the post-menopausal years, or until they have the time and the freedom to write. As a post-menopausal woman myself, I can assure you that I am more full energy / ideas/ metaphors/so-called "creativity" than I was at any previous time of my life, and I bet there are many others out there like me. By next year I will have published four books (with excellent presses) in five years.
I'm full of beans.
I don't accept the results of your study, that "creativity" "declines with age" or that "We become too set in our ways to change" At All At All. Go back to the drawing boards and do the study with just women.
74
(I should add that this is not the name I use when I publish my books.)
Great comment! But, are you saying your creativity was stifled during your child-rearing years? Or, just your productivity? How well have your kids turned out? Seriously. I bet you were pretty creative during those pre-menopausal years. Don't sell yourself short!
3
"On the other hand, exploration-trying something new-may lead us to a more unusual idea, a less obvious solution, a new piece of knowledge. But it may also mean that we waste time considering crazy possibilities that will never work..."
You mean like electing Donald Trump? In future, heaven preserve us from adult voters who thought it would be "creative" to put a spoiled pre-schooler in charge of our country!
You mean like electing Donald Trump? In future, heaven preserve us from adult voters who thought it would be "creative" to put a spoiled pre-schooler in charge of our country!
15
Wow exploration and exploitation, sounds like all the political extremes we have been experiencing lately. As a trained and degreed art education professional, getting someone to express themselves freely always requires finding ways to to allow people to get into a space of carefree, unburdened, loose, anything is possible mind set of a 4 year old. Detectives, problem solvers and creatives hone their skill of open eyes, ears, touch, smell till they can taste it with the wonder of a child. Great conclusions here about growing up thru the developmental ages. I love any attention in print about creativity/science and childhood.
1
I have not let the aging process deter my creativity. I am a singer/songwriter, retired from my "day" job, and, at the age of almost 69, just finished my first novel, to be publish in the late fall. I don't sit still; I attend writing workshops, both in songwriting and creative writing. I had applied for--and was accepted at--an MFA in creative writing program, but when I did the numbers in terms of the fiscal cost, I decided not to attend. I also have a radio show that I done (in addition to the aforementioned "day" job) for nearly four decades.
By contrast, however, my once-creative husband does practically nothing. He's an incredible guitar player who rarely picks up his instrument. When he does, he only wants to sing the songs he knew back in the 1960s. He doesn't want to learn anything new. It's a sad thing to watch for a man who's only 69, a once flourishing singer, guitar player, and someone whom the young women chased after on the college campus lo those many years ago.
By contrast, however, my once-creative husband does practically nothing. He's an incredible guitar player who rarely picks up his instrument. When he does, he only wants to sing the songs he knew back in the 1960s. He doesn't want to learn anything new. It's a sad thing to watch for a man who's only 69, a once flourishing singer, guitar player, and someone whom the young women chased after on the college campus lo those many years ago.
7
Your comment sure caught my attention! I had just finished a first draft of a set of verses for a song, rewarding myself with a look at the Times. I'm just about to transition from full-time to part-time work, thinking about how much focus to put into creative pursuits. So along with pondering what I might do with the two additional days off each week, I am naturally interested in how our creative abilities evolve with time. It is good to hear obvious satisfaction in your creative pursuits, after letting go of your day job.
1
Maybe he's hesitant to try new things because he has a wife who likes to brag about herself - and humiliate him - in print.
1
This suggests a nice universal metric: the exploration/exploitation ratio.
Now if there were only a simple way to determine it such as for the IQ, it might then be quite interesting to cross it with age and IQ for given populations.
Mostly joking, because I abandoned interest in such simplistic quantification decades ago. Possibly because I have remained hopelessly explorative.
Now if there were only a simple way to determine it such as for the IQ, it might then be quite interesting to cross it with age and IQ for given populations.
Mostly joking, because I abandoned interest in such simplistic quantification decades ago. Possibly because I have remained hopelessly explorative.
6
Instinctively for me, the difference between using one's exploration or exploitation facilities is not a measure of creativity.
It is just a measure of trying to answer something the best we can with what we have.
Creativity in art and science and all aspects of life are probably more a measure curiosity and wanting to look for truth.
It is just a measure of trying to answer something the best we can with what we have.
Creativity in art and science and all aspects of life are probably more a measure curiosity and wanting to look for truth.
5
In adulthood, we have more knowledge and more familiarity with useful outcomes. In adulthood, however, I see that I'm more likely to choose familiar results over less used ones because I know what has worked in the past. Isn't creativity about wild new combinations without the assurance of past conclusions?
When I make music, It's often wild accidental combinations and juxtapositions that make the most interesting sounds. So I think both more knowledge and the ability to select among non-obvious choices(creativity) serendipitously allows for interesting results. So we need both creativity and critical thinking skills to navigate our choices in life. In youth, creativity and optimistic tendencies predominate. In older age time is limited; you get down to the nitty-gritty.
I think Einstein talked about the place for creativity in scientific thought. I could be wrong.
When I make music, It's often wild accidental combinations and juxtapositions that make the most interesting sounds. So I think both more knowledge and the ability to select among non-obvious choices(creativity) serendipitously allows for interesting results. So we need both creativity and critical thinking skills to navigate our choices in life. In youth, creativity and optimistic tendencies predominate. In older age time is limited; you get down to the nitty-gritty.
I think Einstein talked about the place for creativity in scientific thought. I could be wrong.
1
Tell it to Verdi. Falstaff at 80.
Or Aeschylus. Oresteia at 70.
Or Michelangelo--prisoners, Last Judgment, St. Peter's dome in his mid-80s.
Pianist Horszowski playing fine recitals at 100.
Or Aeschylus. Oresteia at 70.
Or Michelangelo--prisoners, Last Judgment, St. Peter's dome in his mid-80s.
Pianist Horszowski playing fine recitals at 100.
40
They were just doing their same-old genius thing. The person who came up with Bitcoin that enables ransomware — now that was creative.
2
Or David Lynch (Twin Peaks: The Return) and George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road), both working at their peak in their 70s.
It depends on how lucky we are to retain youthful brain function. Creativity is derivative. In theory, the more you know, the greater your ability to have cross-disciplinary insights and recognize underlying commonalities.
36
Story:
I was in a pool at my local health club two days ago. Four lanes. One other person in the pool. (I am over 50 years old.)
A woman entered the swimming area and reached into a small bag - probably looking for her swimming cap.
But in a split second, I imagined her reaching into the bag and pulling out a handful of piranhas, dropping them into the pool, half swimming toward me, half to the other woman in the pool. In a matter of seconds and bubbly water, me and the other woman would be skeletons, sinking to the bottom of the water, after which the woman standing by the edge of the pool would have the pool to herself.
There is zero sign of the abatement of my creative skills as I age.
If you don't agree, I will have Elmer Fudd come and shoot you so your face turns black and your beak spins around to the other side of your head.
I was in a pool at my local health club two days ago. Four lanes. One other person in the pool. (I am over 50 years old.)
A woman entered the swimming area and reached into a small bag - probably looking for her swimming cap.
But in a split second, I imagined her reaching into the bag and pulling out a handful of piranhas, dropping them into the pool, half swimming toward me, half to the other woman in the pool. In a matter of seconds and bubbly water, me and the other woman would be skeletons, sinking to the bottom of the water, after which the woman standing by the edge of the pool would have the pool to herself.
There is zero sign of the abatement of my creative skills as I age.
If you don't agree, I will have Elmer Fudd come and shoot you so your face turns black and your beak spins around to the other side of your head.
9
Psychosis? Notably, there are bigly numbers of creative adults who are socially irresponsible. I'm not saying so but ... "piranahs" and "shoot you so your face turns black and your beak ...." Trust me, I dig your humor, but such violent imagery? In front of adults??
Aging doesn't ensure adulthood/maturation/"growing up." Knowledge doesn't preclude aged imagination and/or creative idiocy. A duck nudged open the stall's door; a donkey could not.
How does this experiment account for the problem of school kids and adults not wanting to look stupid and/or inappropriate? There may have been many of the older group charmed by the less conventional explanation, who nevertheless went for the obvious one because they were being tested and judged. When running their own projects, they might be far more creative.
7
well said there from ballindalloch
I have just as many loopy ideas as I did when I was kid. Just ask my wife. The difference is that in my late 60s I have the means to turn them into reality. Life is wonderful.
46
I think the experiments weren't very creative.
119
"Childhood and adolescence may, at least in part, be designed to resolve the tension between..."
C'mon. You guys are supposed to be scientists. You know there is no evidence of design.
C'mon. You guys are supposed to be scientists. You know there is no evidence of design.
14
I believe the writer did intend to use the word "design" in the sense which you view as objectionable. Rather, natural processes naturally select for successful outcomes (however one may define "successful "). The design in that process is natural, since failure results in the extinction of the unsuccessful outcomes.
1
The first sentence in the preceding post, should read "I believe the writer did NOT intend...." sorry.
There's also an energy and responsibility factor at work too. When we are young, energy is boundless and experimentation has numerous outlets. As we age, energy declines or is diverted to other life tasks, so solutions have to had more quickly and with a high probability of success. As we become full adults, especially after having kids and careers, we make many choices daily and so making the correct on each time is important. So creativity falls off as the need for proven outcomes rises. Creativity really comes to fore when one has no timeline and no expected outcome. That's what early to mid childhood is all about.
4
Perhaps it isn't a matter of age but how one has been
conditioned toward pragmatisim or thinking outside the box.
As a writer, I adhere to the notion that for me "Everything
is everything else, all the time." I love to work with images
as implicit metaphor. Can a tree be gray to the touch?
Sure.
Teens are inherently conservative tribalists in age related
uniforms. It is a dangerous time for them. Ideas can
threaten them. Adulthood can re-invent creativity.
But one has to stay open to possibilities, not certainties.
conditioned toward pragmatisim or thinking outside the box.
As a writer, I adhere to the notion that for me "Everything
is everything else, all the time." I love to work with images
as implicit metaphor. Can a tree be gray to the touch?
Sure.
Teens are inherently conservative tribalists in age related
uniforms. It is a dangerous time for them. Ideas can
threaten them. Adulthood can re-invent creativity.
But one has to stay open to possibilities, not certainties.
10
My personal observation is limited to one man, my father, Peter Forakis, sculptor and geometric linguist.
Dad peeled back the onion of geometric form and presented it in new ways up until the day he unexpectedly passed away in 2009, at 82, still filled with waking up each morning only to discover some new iteration of three-dimensional shape not yet expressed - and he loved expressing it in steel, giving that stiff medium unending shapes, on many planes.
There are many examples of artists, architects, scientists, teachers, and so on who, only after years of failing forward, discover and present new ways to look at and approach problems or present the mundane in new and exciting ways.
To suggest that the excited, uninhibited font joy on how children explore and explain the world is hardly the explanation of how the river of creativity runs dry as we age. Still, it is interesting.
I'm sure Dad would have an explanation for the finding - something like, "Close your eyes so you can see the answer in your dreams." He always was very child like.
Dad peeled back the onion of geometric form and presented it in new ways up until the day he unexpectedly passed away in 2009, at 82, still filled with waking up each morning only to discover some new iteration of three-dimensional shape not yet expressed - and he loved expressing it in steel, giving that stiff medium unending shapes, on many planes.
There are many examples of artists, architects, scientists, teachers, and so on who, only after years of failing forward, discover and present new ways to look at and approach problems or present the mundane in new and exciting ways.
To suggest that the excited, uninhibited font joy on how children explore and explain the world is hardly the explanation of how the river of creativity runs dry as we age. Still, it is interesting.
I'm sure Dad would have an explanation for the finding - something like, "Close your eyes so you can see the answer in your dreams." He always was very child like.
7
Your father must've been pretty awesome to spend a childhood around.
If you think creativity fades with age, watch Carl Reiner's documentary, "If you're not in the Obit, eat breakfast." It seems the research stated here is very narrow, and doesn't relate to real life experiences. My father has been in a creative field his entire life, and at age 81, is still working on projects. Perhaps you need to research people for whom creativity is a way of life, and not random people in an experiment.
121
The authors seem to assume that creativity is opposed to logic, and to be creative is related to come up with "unusual" scenarios or explanations. This seems a very naive and misguided line of thought. Of course adults won't come chose the usual, absurd explanations since their experience teaches them a sense of logic to how things work. That does not mean they cannot come up with "unusual" (a bad choice of word) ideas. Creativity has to do with association of concepts, with creating something new from what we already have. It is not disassociated from reason and it is not the cousin of absurdity. Creative thinkers are smart and able to combine ideas and concepts to find solutions to problem that are both new and efficient, and of course completely rational. Be that in science, the arts or any other line of work. This shallow vision in which we assume that the musings of children are "creative" goes, I believe, nowhere. Picasso, Einstein, Stravinsky, Bach or Shakespeare were creative, as great scientists, doctors, architects, engineers, designers, business leaders and many others are. Creativity is a part of intellect, not a whim of still undeveloped children.
195
Well said.
I have worked with a lot of creative people in R&D and it is, as you stated, a mix of logic and imagination.
I have worked with a lot of creative people in R&D and it is, as you stated, a mix of logic and imagination.
8
Thank you. Yes, and your comment makes more sense than the "findings" of the article. They forgot about logic and experience.
4
Really? Sorry I disagree. All of the physicists in the early 1900s were WRONG but Einstein was RIGHT.
Why? He saw something no one else did: the speed of light is CONSTANT. Wht in your experience would have made you come to such a conclusion. NOTHING.
Einstein's premise was a revelation and it changed everything else. That was genius and creativity.
I personally think the U.S. is unable to solve its problems because it keeps trying the same dumb things over and over thinking that the outcomes would change.
Why? He saw something no one else did: the speed of light is CONSTANT. Wht in your experience would have made you come to such a conclusion. NOTHING.
Einstein's premise was a revelation and it changed everything else. That was genius and creativity.
I personally think the U.S. is unable to solve its problems because it keeps trying the same dumb things over and over thinking that the outcomes would change.
This is I think an old observation -- see, for example, the speech on the dichotomy between youth and old age in the final episode of "The Prisoner."
And as a boomer in his 60's, I confess that this causes me a certain amount of frustration, as many of my fellow boomers seem to have stopped their political development in their teenage years.
The problems that the Democratic and Republican establishments had in the recent election have a lot I think to do with that. Neither party seemed to recognize the challenges facing the working class. Neither seemed willing to revise its belief in free trade with low wage countries despite the evidence that it has been a failure. The mainstream Democrats seemed interested only in identity politics and aid to the poor, while the Republicans seemed interested only in tax cuts for the wealthy. The public elected a demagogue as a result.
I believe that if we are to maintain more of our creativity into middle and old age, we have to work at it. That means questioning our own fundamental beliefs and assumptions, no matter how deeply felt. It means always asking why, even when we have asked that question many times before. And t means always exploring new and less comfortable paths.
And as a boomer in his 60's, I confess that this causes me a certain amount of frustration, as many of my fellow boomers seem to have stopped their political development in their teenage years.
The problems that the Democratic and Republican establishments had in the recent election have a lot I think to do with that. Neither party seemed to recognize the challenges facing the working class. Neither seemed willing to revise its belief in free trade with low wage countries despite the evidence that it has been a failure. The mainstream Democrats seemed interested only in identity politics and aid to the poor, while the Republicans seemed interested only in tax cuts for the wealthy. The public elected a demagogue as a result.
I believe that if we are to maintain more of our creativity into middle and old age, we have to work at it. That means questioning our own fundamental beliefs and assumptions, no matter how deeply felt. It means always asking why, even when we have asked that question many times before. And t means always exploring new and less comfortable paths.
4
What is outlined here meets my eye as a very limited analysis of creativity. As I have aged to 54 years my mind has collected extensive experiences and observations of this world and its occupants. I draw from that wellspring original observations and potential solutions to the problems I face. It's as simple as I just have more crayons now than when I was 6 years old, and I enjoy using them to great effect.
76
In my 67 years I have come to believe that we tend to go through 3 phases in life. Idealistic: when we believe everything is possible; pragmatic: when we believe everything must be purposeful: existential: when we know nothing matters except that which is important to oneself. Of course, the details vary by each individual's nature and nurture. But the forces of life and coming of death drive seem to drive the impulses.
106
How we die is the ultimate test of how we lived.
3
... or, how we live in the next life. Karma, you know.
I feel like my creativity has increased as I've gotten older, because I'm not as afraid as I used to be about being judged. I'm confident and creative enough now to have one novel in final draft stages and four in the hopper.
I think the problem with adolescents is that they are extremely sensitive about being judged. They're trying to negotiate the beginnings of adult social bonding and they're becoming aware of peer judgment and learning to fear it.
And really I am not convinced at all that a study using six year olds and adolescents has anything to say about the creativity of adults.
Also I don't think it's proper for scientists to cover their own work in the NYT. They can't be objective in covering any possible shortcomings. This is not science journalism. This is self-promotion.
I think the problem with adolescents is that they are extremely sensitive about being judged. They're trying to negotiate the beginnings of adult social bonding and they're becoming aware of peer judgment and learning to fear it.
And really I am not convinced at all that a study using six year olds and adolescents has anything to say about the creativity of adults.
Also I don't think it's proper for scientists to cover their own work in the NYT. They can't be objective in covering any possible shortcomings. This is not science journalism. This is self-promotion.
209
Fully agreed as a scientist, particularly emphasizing the impropriety in the self-promotion aspects of scientists providing pop-psychology versions of their research in the Times - especially when the scientists in question might have books to sell via the footnotes. Such attempts only lead to lack of credibility, such as many of the comments here indicate.
5
I disagree w/ this put down. Information is important. Use your creativity to assess it.
1
Agree with all sentiments in your post Patricia. In addition to your critique i'd like to add that the specific criteria for "creativity" strikes me as arbitrary and limited. There are many forms or creativity.
3
I'm not sure the creativity of adults should be judged through the lens of this experiment. Children and/or teens might have chosen the more "creative" options based less on exploration than haste, for instance. I bet that adults, challenged not to solve a problem but specifically to find creative solutions, would be just as inclined toward exploration as anyone else.
57
Now, the rate of change is so high can't be measured. What does that imply? Do the young have all the answers, or do the older people learn to become more flexible at the risk of becoming irrelevant if they don't? Stay tuned.