On Creative Thinking

Creativity and critical thinking have something in common, for example if we look for individual skills from creative thinking we may find skills similar to critical thinking. Open-minded thinking, considering alternatives, problem solving and related to it decision making, all of this can be considered skills from both areas. And I can probably find some more examples of such skills.

Open-minded thinking may not be a skill, but a thinking disposition. But it still helps while working with new information, as people have a number of cognitive biases and they tend to stick to what they already know. With this disposition they can change their attitude towards new information which can help create something new.

There is a similar situation with considering alternatives, people tend not to look for they often. But this behaviour can be changed, and a person can establish a habit to look for alternatives more often. There are also interesting methods in creative thinking when you look for possible solutions in other areas, it can be an example of actively open-minded thinking and considering alternatives.

When a person wants to create something he needs to make a number of decisions: what, how, when and so on. So decision making is also an essential part of a creative process. Also a person can face a number of problems, you probably have guessed already what he needs in this case. Problem appearance leads to making decision because you need to choose the best way to solve it. And making decisions usually related to problems you have found because problems create a state of dissatisfaction which people usually want to change.

What all of this means for you if you want to learn creative thinking or critical thinking? Basically you will learn a number of skills which will help you in another area. As I wrote before [Writing With Critical Thinking], critical thinking can help you with writing texts, which is a form of creativity. And if you work on your creativity you may improve your critical thinking skills and dispositions, especially if you know about connections between these two areas.