Creative thinking is a controlled process in which the creative thinker – whether artist, writer or a scientist – attempts to create something new. It includes characteristics of both reasoning and imagination. Creative thinking is a process whereby the individual produces genuine, unusual and productive solution to a problem.
The process of creative thinking is defined as personal as well as imaginative thinking which produces a new, novel and useful solution. Unlike standard solutions to problems, creative solutions are new as other people haven’t thought of them before.
The product of creative thinking
The product of creative thinking maybe a unique, new way of visualising the world around us. The emphasis in creative thinking centres on the word ‘new’. In human beings, there are two kinds of productive abilities: convergent as well as divergent abilities.
- Convergent abilities are utilised to bring together otherwise divergent things.
- Divergent production abilities are those capabilities which are not guided by rules or conventions. However, these abilities are capable of generating novel solutions to a problem. Divergent production abilities are specifically important in creative thinking.