Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T02:37:26.946Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

15 - Creativity and Reason: Friends or Foes?

from SECTION THREE - CREATIVITY AND REASON: INTERACTIONS AND RELATED CONSTRUCTS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

By
Jacques-Henri Guignard  and
Todd Lubart
Edited by
James C. Kaufman  and
John Baer
Jacques-Henri Guignard
Affiliation:
Université Paris Descartes
Todd Lubart
Affiliation:
Université Paris Descartes
James C. Kaufman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
John Baer
Affiliation:
Rider University, New Jersey
Get access

Summary

We here explore possible links between reasoning and creativity. Creativity has sometimes been described as a blind search with retention of fortuitous “good” ideas, as a “freewheeling” mental activity, as “thinking outside the box” and as the result of “primary processes” that are intuitive. Creativity is often contrasted with adaptive step-by-step processing, controlled thought, logic and prototypical “reasoning” behavior. However, is this dichotomy a reasonable picture of the way things work, or rather a caricature that hides some deep links between reasoning and creativity? First, the relationship between the development of logical thought and creative thinking in children is examined. Then connections between creativity and formal and postformal reasoning, in particular dialectical thinking, are studied. Finally, implications and conclusions are drawn.

In this chapter, we consider reasoning, in general, as the act of thinking based on inductive and deductive processes. It is often associated, more specifically, with the process of developing and supporting assertions, claims, proposals or conclusions from facts or premises, based on a set of arguments (Reber, 1995). Reasoning, in many cases, provides the basis for action or decisions. The development of reasoning is often viewed as an important educational goal.

Creativity, in contrast, can be defined as the capacity to produce novel, original work that fits with task constraints (Lubart, 1994). Work refers to all types of ideas and productions. This work must be novel in the sense that it goes beyond a replication or copy of that which exists. The extent to which the work produced is novel can vary from being original only for the person who completed the work (this is the notion of reinventing ideas known already in the larger social context) to being original for a limited social group, to being original for all of humanity. The second component in the definition concerns the fit with constraints. We distinguish creative ideas from bizarre ideas, which are also novel, because creative ideas take into account the parameters of a situation, the constraints. Novel productions that are in some way “useful”, or “worthwhile”, in a given context are, thus, creative.

In the following sections the links between reasoning and creativity are examined.

Type
Chapter
Information
Creativity and Reason in Cognitive Development , pp. 282 - 301
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2016

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amabile, T. M. (1982). Social psychology of creativity: A consensual assessment technique. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(5), 997–1013CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arieti, S. (1976). Creativity: The magic synthesis. Oxford: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Arlin, P. K. (1990). Wisdom: The art of problem finding. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins, and development (pp. 230–243). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Basseches, M. (1984). Dialectical thinking and adult development. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Beckerman, M. B. (1990). Leos Janacek and “the late style” in music. The Gerontologist, 30, 632–635.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benack, S., Basseches, M., & Swan, T. (1989). Perspectives on individual differences. In Ronning, R. R. & Glover, J. A. (Eds.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 199–208). New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Chi, M. (1997). Creativity: Shifting across ontological categories flexibly. In T. B. Ward, S. M. Smith, & J. Vaid (Eds.), Creative thought: An investigation of conceptual structures and processes (pp. 209–234). Washington, DC: APA Press.Google Scholar
Cloutier, R., & Goldschmid, M. L. (1976) Individual differences in the development of formal reasoning. Child Development, 47, 1097–1102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen-Shalev, A. (1986). Artistic creativity across the adult life span: An alternative approach. Interchange, 17(4), 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen-Shalev, A. (1989). Old age style: Developmental changes in creative production from a life-span perspective. Journal of Aging Studies, 3(1), 21–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, D., Lubart, T., Alksnis, O, & Rist, R. (1991). Conditional reasoning and causation. Memory and Cognition, 19, 274–282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dudek, S. Z., & Coté, R. (1994). Problem finding revisited. In Runco, M. A. (Ed.), Problem finding, problem solving, and creativity. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Duncker, K. (1945). On problem solving. Psychological Monographs, 58(5).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, H. (1993). Creating minds. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gardner, H., Phelps, E., & Wolf, D. P. (1990). The roots of adult creativity in children's symbolic products. In Langern, E. J., Alexander, C. N. (Ed.), Higher stages of human development: Perspective on adult growth (pp. 79–96). London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gauffroy, C., & Barrouillet, P. (2011). The primacy of thinking about possibilities in the development of reasoning. Developmental Psychology, 47(4), 1000–1011.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Georgsdottir, A. S., Ameel, E., & Lubart, T. I. (2002). Cognitive flexibility and logical reasoning in school aged children. Paper presented at the 17th Biennial Meeting of the International Society of Behavior Development (ISSBD), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Glassner, A., & Schwarz, B. B. (2007). What stands and develops between creative and critical thinking? Argumentation?Thinking Skills and Creativity, 2, 10–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guignard, J. H. & Lubart, T. I. (2007). A comparative study of creative potential in intellectual giftedness. Gifted and Talented International, 22 (1), 10–15.CrossRef
Jaarsveld, S., Lachmann, T., Hamel, R., & van Leeuwen, C. (2010). Solving and creating Raven Progressive Matrices: Reasoning in well- and ill-defined problem spaces. Creativity Research Journal, 22 (3), 304–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jaarsveld, S., Lachmann, T., & van Leeuwen, C. (2012). Creative reasoning across developmental levels: Convergence and divergence in problem creation. Intelligence, 40, 172–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2006). How we reason?Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1994). Precis of beyond modularity: A developmental perspective on cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 17(4), 693–745.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koestler, A. (1964). The act of creation. Oxford, England: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kramer, D. A. (1983). Post-formal operations? A need for further conceptulization. Human Development, 26, 91–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, D. A. (1990). Conceptualizing wisdom: The primacy of affect-cognition relations. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins, and development (pp. 279–313). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Labouvie-Vief, G. (1985). Intelligence and cognition. In Schaie, K. W. & Birren, J. E. (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.Google Scholar
Lehman, H. C. (1953). Age and achievement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Light, P., Blaye, A., Gilly, M., & Girotto, V. (1989). Pragmatic schemas and logical reasoning in 6- to 8-years-old children. Cognitive Development, 4(1), 49–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lubart, T. I. (1994). Creativity. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), Thinking and problem solving (pp. 289–332). San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lubart, T. I., & Lautrey, J. (1996). Development of creativity in 9- to 10-year old children. Paper presented at the Growing Mind Congress, Genève, Suisse.
Lubart, T. I., Mouchiroud, C., Torjman, S., & Zenasni, F. (2015). Psychologie de la créativité (Second Edition) (Psychology of creativity). Paris: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Lubart, T. I., & Sternberg, R. J. (1998). Life span creativity: An investment theory approach. In Adam-Price, C. (Ed.), Creativity and successful aging: Theoretical and empirical approach (pp. 21–41). New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Lubart, T., Besançon, M., & Barbot, B. (2011). EPoC: Evaluation du Potentiel Créatif (Evaluation of Creative Potential). Paris: Hogrefe.Google Scholar
Maker, C. J. (2001). DISCOVER: Assessing and developing problem solving. Gifted Education International, 15(3), 232–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maker, C. J. (2005). The DISCOVER Project: Improving assessment and curriculum for diverse gifted learners. Storrs, CT: National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.Google Scholar
Markovits, H., & Brunet, M-L. (2012). Priming divergent thinking promotes logical reasoning in 6- to 8-year olds: But more for high than low SES students. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 24(8), 991–1001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orwoll, L., & Perlmutter, M. (1990). The study of wise persons: Integrating a personality perspective. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins, and development (pp. 160–177). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pascual-Leone, J. (1990). An essay on wisdom: Toward organismic processes that make it possible. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins, and development (pp. 244–278). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1981). Le possible et le nécessaire, Tome 1: l’évolution des possibles chez l'enfant. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1987). Possibility and necessity: The role of possibility in cognitive development (Feider, H., Trans.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Reber, A. S. (1995). The Penguin dictionary of psychology, 2nd ed. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Ribot, T. (1926). Essai sur l'imagination créatrice (Essay on creative imagination). Paris: Alcan.Google Scholar
Rieben, L. (1982). Processus secondaire et créativité: Partie émergée de l'iceberg? In Nicolaïdis, N. & Schmid-Kitsikis, E. (Eds.), Créativité et/ou symptôme (pp. 97–111). Paris: Clancier-Guenand.Google Scholar
Riegel, K. F. (1975). Toward a dialectic theory of development. Human Development, 18(1–2), 50–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenblatt, E., & Winner, E. (1988). The art of children's drawing. Journal of Aesthetic Education, 22(1), 3–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, R. J. (1976). The development of formal thinking and creativity in adolescence. Adolescence, 11(44), 609–617.Google Scholar
Rothenberg, A. (1979). The emerging goddess: The creative process in art, science and other fields. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rothenberg, A. (2011). Janusian, homospatial and sepconic articulation processes. In Runco, M. A & Pritzker, S. R. (Eds.) Encyclopedia of creativity,2nd ed. (Vol. 2, pp. 1–9). New York: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1975). Interdisciplinary creativity over historical time: A correlational analysis of generational fluctuation. Social Behavior and Personality, 3(2), 181–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1989). The swan-song phenomenon: Last-works effects for 172 classical composers. Psychology and Aging, 4, 42–47.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smilansky, J. (1984). Problem solving and the quality of invention: An empirical question. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(3), 377–386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Torrance, E. P. (1968). A longitudinal examination of the fourth-grade slump in creativity. Gifted Child Quartely, 12, 195–199.Google Scholar
Urban, K K., & Jellan, H. G. (1995). The test of creative thinking- drawing production. Lisse, Netherlands: Swets.Google Scholar
Wu, P-L., & Chiou, W-B. (2008). Postformal thinking and creativity among late adolescents: A post-Piagetian approach. Adolescence, 43(170), 237–251.Google ScholarPubMed
Wyatt-Brown, A. M. (1998). Late style in the novels of Barbara Pym and Penelope Mortimer. The Gerontologist, 28, 835–839.Google Scholar
Yang, C-C., Wan, C-S., & Chiou, W-B. (2010). Dialectical thinking and creativity among young adults: A postformal operations perspective. Psychological Reports, 106(1), 79–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×