98% of 5 Year Olds are Creative Geniuses and You Can Be Too
98% of 5 Year Olds are Creative Geniuses and You Can Be Too
There lies a common misconception that creativity is intrinsic. That creative geniuses are simply born with an astounding predisposition for a heightened creative output. However, modern research has failed to prove that creativity is genetic and many creative geniuses, across industries, attribute their creative achievements not to a natural born gift, but rather to hard-work and resilience.
Although creativity remains elusive and difficult to measure, Dr. George Land and Dr. Beth Jarman successfully developed a test meant to measure the test takers’ creative potential and capacity for divergent thinking, a free flowing, ‘non-linear’ thought process that promotes idea creation and problem solving. Originally developed in order to help NASA find the most innovative scientists and engineers, the test was later repurposed and given to children over a span of a decade.
The children of this study were first tested at the ages of 5, then again at 10, and 15 years old. Beginning at the age of 5, the results of Land and Jarman’s creativity test suggested that 98% of 5-year old children were creative geniuses capable of divergent thinking that is free of judgement. However, by the age of 10, only 30% retested at a creative genius level and by 15, only 12% qualified to be creative geniuses. A fourth test was then administered to random adults above the age of 25 which resulted in only 2% of them testing in a creative genius score range.
Land and Jarman’s study focused in on divergent thinking and convergent thinking, a thought process that uses critical thinking and logic to solve a problem. The study established that these two types of creative thinking are necessary for innovation, and further proved that children around the age of 5 consistently meet the requirements of a creative genius. The results of this test made it possible to understand that creativity is a skill that must be strengthened and honed over time, instead of inherited. Everyone is born with the capacity and potential of being a creative genius. The problem arises as we begin to age and lose access to this potential.
However, Land and Jarman’s creativity test failed to reveal any correlation as to why creativity is seemingly decreasing with age. While defaulting to an aging brain might be the simplest solution, Land instead wrote, “What we have concluded is that non-creative behavior is learned.”
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While the capacity for being a creative genius may be within us all, creativity has continually been devalued not just by the education system but by society as a whole. Within the school system, the creative curriculum budget is often the first cut when budget cuts must be made. Artistic pursuits, in terms of career, are often looked down upon because of a lack of opportunity and economic stability.
The education system has not adapted to the 21st century. The current functioning of the American education system fails to emphasize both styles of creative thinking needed for innovation. The modern education system, developed in the early 1900’s, and mostly unchanged in the last 100 years, was initially focused on training children to enter the workforce of the industrial age. In this way, the education system focused on convergent thinking in order to highlight direction-following, fact memorizations, and task completion. The education system discourages curiosity and wrong answers, instead promoting perfectionism and blind recitation of facts which severely discredits any creative itch or pursuit. The education system’s emphasis on convergent thinking, and the ability to produce the one and only correct answer, forces children to lose access to their ability to think divergently and judgement free.
Still, we do not simply lose our capacity to think creatively, rather we fall out of touch with these skills the less and less they are used. In order to regain access to your inner creative genius, the skills associated with divergent thinking must be built up and strengthened like a muscle. While a myriad of exercises exists to help one enter creative flow, a state of hyper-divergent thinking, cannabis, in smaller doses, can also help reconnect yourself with your inner-creative genius as it can help people escape from their typical thought process and gain access to new perspectives.
Although the education system continues to focus on nurturing convergent thinking, one’s capacity for divergent thinking is not lost or gone, just weakened. The ability to think divergently is within everyone, it is just a matter if whether you are ready to strengthen those skillsets and apply them to your everyday life.
Everyone has quite literally been taught to think in a more linear, non-creative manner, but reintegrating creativity into your life begins by connecting with yourself and re-wiring everyday thinking habits. By connecting with yourself, and developing a non-judgmental way of thought, the creative genius and divergent thinker within us can be reawakened and strengthened.
