What is Creativity?
Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.
Three reasons why people are motivated to be creative:
need for new, varied, and complex stimulation
need to communicate ideas and values
need to solve problems
In order to be creative, you need to be able to view things in new ways or from a different perspective. Among other things, you need to be able to generate new possibilities or new alternatives. Tests of creativity measure not only the number of alternatives that people can generate but the uniqueness of those alternatives. The ability to generate alternatives or to see things uniquely does not occur by change; it is linked to other, more fundamental qualities of thinking, such as flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity or unpredictability, and the enjoyment of things heretofore unknown.
Types of Creativity
To better foster creativity in the studio, it's important to understand the different types of creativity. So, let's take a look!
Deliberate & Cognitive
Creative types who are deliberate and cognitively-based are purposeful. They possess a lot of knowledge about a particular subject and combine that with their skills and abilities to put a plan into action. People with this type of creativity are usually adept at research, experimentation and problem-solving. This type of creativity lies in the brain's prefrontal cortex toward the front of the brain.
Deliberate & Emotional
Creative people who are classified as deliberate and emotional, let their work be influenced by their emotions. These are frequently more sensitive and feeling individuals who might prefer lots of quiet time for personal reflection or writing in a diary. But, they are also equally logical and rational, marrying deliberate actions with emotional creativity. This type of creativity lies in the brain's amygdala, responsible for human emotion, and cingulate cortex, which combines learning and information processing.
Spontaneous & Cognitive
Have you ever been working on a problem or idea that you can’t seem to solve. Maybe you have been writing and song and the lyrics just not flowing right. Then you go to lunch, and on your way back you get a flash of insight about how to staff the project. This is an example of spontaneous and cognitive creativity.
Spontaneous and cognitive creativity involves the basal ganglia of the brain. This is where dopamine is stored, and it is a part of the brain that operates outside of your conscious awareness. During spontaneous, cognitive creativity, the conscious brain stops working on the problem, and this gives the unconscious part of the brain a chance to work on it instead. If a problem requires “out of the box” thinking then you need to remove it temporarily from conscious awareness. By doing a different, unrelated activity, the brain is able to connect information in new ways via your unconscious mental processing.
Spontaneous & Emotional
“Epiphanies” — Spontaneous and emotional creativity comes from the amygdala. The amygdala is where basic emotions are processed. When the conscious brain and the prefrontal cortex are resting, then it is possible for spontaneous ideas and creations to emerge. This is the kind of creativity that you think of when you think about great artists and musicians. Often these kind of spontaneous and emotional creative moments are quite powerful, such as an epiphany, or a religious experience. There is not specific knowledge necessary (it’s not cognitive) for this type of creativity, but there is often skill (writing, artistic, musical) needed to create something from the spontaneous and emotional creative idea.
Summary:
Deliberate and cognitive creativity requires a high degree of knowledge and lots of time.
Deliberate and emotional creativity requires quiet time.
Spontaneous and cognitive creativity requires stopping work on the problem and getting away.