“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”– George Bernard Shaw
Divergent thinking
Parallels have been drawn between playfulness in kindergarten-aged children and divergent thinking. In a study documented by Lieberman (1965), the relationship between these two traits was examined, with playfulness being “conceptualized and operationally defined in terms of five traits:
- physical,
- social and
- cognitive spontaneity;
- manifest joy; and
- sense of humour” (Lieberman, 1965)
.. Results showed natural positive mood to facilitate significantly task performance and negative mood to inhibit it… The results suggest that persons in elevated moods may prefer satisficing strategies, which would lead to a higher number of proposed solutions. Persons in a negative mood may choose optimizing strategies and be more concerned with the quality of their ideas, which is detrimental to performance on this kind of task.
— (Vosburg, 1998).. This study showed that even “one night of sleep loss can affect divergent thinking”, which “contrasts with the outcome for convergent thinking tasks, which are more resilient to short-term sleep loss” (Horne, 1988).
How to Beat Writer’s Block
In a 1950 paper called “Does Writer’s Block Exist?,” published in American Imago, a journal founded by Freud in 1939, Bergler argued that a writer is like a psychoanalyst. He “unconsciously tries to solve his inner problems via the sublimatory medium of writing.” A blocked writer is actually blocked psychologically—and the way to “unblock” that writer is through therapy.
.. Symptoms of depression and anxiety, including increased self-criticism and reduced excitement and pride at work, were elevated in the blocked group; symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, such as repetition, self-doubt, procrastination, and perfectionism, also appeared, as did feelings of helplessness and “aversion to solitude”—a major problem, since writing usually requires time alone.
.. They fell, Barrios and Singer discovered, into four general types. In one group, anxiety and stress dominated; to them, the main impediment to writing was a deep emotional distress that sapped the joy out of writing. In another group, unhappiness expressed itself interpersonally, through anger and irritation at others. A third group was apathetic and disengaged, while a fourth tended to be angry, hostile, and disappointed—their emotions were strongly negative, as opposed to merely sad.
.. Different kinds of unhappy writers, Barrios and Singer discovered, are blocked differently.
.. The first, more anxious group felt unmotivated because of excessive self-criticism—nothing they produced was good enough—even though their imaginative capacity remained relatively unimpaired.
.. The second, more socially hostile group was unmotivated because they didn’t want their work compared to the work of others.
.. The third, apathetic group seemed the most creatively blocked. They couldn’t daydream; they lacked originality; and they felt that the “rules” they were subjected to were too constrictive. Their motivation was also all but nonexistent. Finally, the fourth, angry and disappointed group tended to look for external motivation; they were driven by the need for attention and extrinsic reward.
.. Therapy didn’t unblock creativity; creative training worked as a form of therapy.
.. It’s useful to escape from external and internal judgment—by writing, for instance, in a dream diary, which you know will never be read—even if it’s only for a brief period.
The Myth of the Neurotic Creative
The average correlation between neuroticism and creative achievement was zero. In fact, we found that the only personality trait that consistently predicted creative achievement across the arts and sciences was openness to experience.
.. Openness to experience is a dimension of personality that reflects the drive for cognitive exploration. This could mean a thoughtful exploration of your inner world of ideas, or it could mean an exploration of beauty, art, music, culture, and new experiences. This sense of openness has been linked to higher dopamine, which has been referred to as “the neuromodulator of exploration.”
.. Also, the evidence that is much clearer is that neuroticism is affected by the amygdala and insula, areas of the brain associated with fear, emotional reactivity, and emotional regulation. Instead of saying that the default network is the engine of neuroticism, it seems more likely that the high anxiety and negative affect of neuroticism hijack default-network activity to make our daydreams negatively tinged.
.. The executive attention network is critical for keeping thoughts on task, organizing one’s thoughts, and in working memory. The salience network plays a critical role in motivation, helping to focus our limited attentional resources.
.. What these findings suggest is that creativity doesn’t just involve imagination. It also involves motivation, organization, and collaboration. The neurotic imagination can really distract from these processes.