| |
Do general purpose creative thinking skills - 'skills'
like divergent thinking, which is touted as an important component of creative
thinking no matter what the task domain - actually make much of a contribution
to creative performance? Although much recent research argues against such
domain-transcending skills - including several new studies reported by
John Baer - the appeal of such general skills remains strong, probably
because of the theoretical energetic properties such skills would provide.
Divergent thinking, in particular, has had an incredible staying power.
Despite its many flaws, divergent thinking remains the most frequently
used indicator of creativity in both creativity research and educational
practice, and divergent thinking theory has a strong hold on everyday conceptions
of what it means to be creative.
Reviewing the available research on divergent thinking, John Baer presents
a framework for understanding other major theories of creativity, including
Mednick's associative theory and a possible connectionist approach of creativity.
It reports a series of studies (including the study that won APA's 1992
Berlyne Prize) that demonstrate the absence of effects of general creative-thinking
skills across a range of creativity-relevant tasks, but indicate that training
in divergent thinking does in fact improve creative performance across
diverse task domains.
John Baer fills the gap between divergent - thinking theory and more
recent, modular conceptions of creativity. Rather than advocate that we
simply discard divergent thinking - an approach that hasn't worked, or
at least hasn't happened, because of many attacks on its validity and usefulness
- John Baer shows how to separate what is useful in divergent - thinking
theory and practice from what is not; that divergent-thinking training
can be valuable, although often not for the reasons trainers think it works.
And it offers specific suggestions about the kinds of creativity research
most needed today.
On- Creativity |