Our brains must be able to connect seemingly unrelated concepts in order to think creatively. Is this something we're born with or something we work on? In order to get an answer, let's have a look at the research.
Studying 1,600 5-year-olds in the 1960s, creative performance researcher George Land found that 98 percent of the youngsters scored in the "very creative" category. Each subject was retested every five years by Dr. Land. Only 30 percent of the 10-year-olds in the study were rated as highly creative. 12 percent by age 15 and 2 percent by 25 are the lowest rates ever recorded. As they grew up, the youngsters virtually lost their ability to be creative. "Non-creative behavior is learned," says Dr. Land.
Other researchers have found similar patterns. Although IQ scores have grown since 1990, creative thinking has dropped in one study of 272,599 students.
This is not to imply that one can learn to be creative in a classroom setting. A person's genes do play an influence in their success. "about 22% of the diversity [in creativity] is due to the effect of genes," according to psychology professor Barbara Kerr. This result was made by researching the differences in creative thinking across sets of twins.
"I'm just not the creative kind" is a fairly weak excuse for avoiding creative thinking, to say the least. Indeed, some people are more creative than others, and this is something that can't be denied. The majority of our creative thinking abilities, on the other hand, can be learned by practically everyone.
Now that we've established that creativity is a learnable ability, it's time to explore why and how practice and education affect your creative output.
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