Divergent thinking

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Divergent thinking is a thought process used to generate creative ideas by exploring many possible solutions. It typically occurs in a spontaneous, free-flowing, "non-linear" manner, such that many ideas are generated in an emergent cognitive fashion. Many possible solutions are explored in a short amount of time, and unexpected connections are drawn. Divergent thinking is often contrasted with convergent thinking. Convergent thinking is the opposite of divergent thinking as it organizes and structures ideas and information, which follows a particular set of logical steps to arrive at one solution, which in some cases is a "correct" solution.

Contents

The psychologist J. P. Guilford first coined the terms convergent thinking and divergent thinking in 1956.

A map of how divergent thinking works Final divergent thinking.jpg
A map of how divergent thinking works

Activities

Activities which promote divergent thinking include creating lists of questions, setting aside time for thinking and meditation, brainstorming, subject mapping, bubble mapping, keeping a journal, playing tabletop role-playing games, [1] creating artwork, and free writing.

Divergent vs convergent thinking

Convergent thinking is the process of finding one solution. Divergent thinking involves more creativity, and is typically regarded as spontaneous. In other words, convergent thinking involves more logical thinking with the aim of finding the most efficient solution. Divergent thinking is more useful for brainstorming to explore multiple potential solutions, with less focus on immediate practicality. [2]

Benefits of convergent thinking:

Benefits of divergent thinking:

Divergent thinking and society

Parallels have been drawn between playfulness in kindergarten-aged children and divergent thinking. [3] Pier-Luc Chantal, Emilie Gagnon-St-Pierre, and Henry Markovits of Université du Quebec à Montréal conducted a study on preschool-aged children in which the relationship between divergent thinking and deductive reasoning were observed. [4]

Guila Fusi, Sara Lavolpe, Nara Crepaldi, and Maria Lusia Rusconi conducted a systematic review on the effect of age on divergent thinking. They found that the relationship between age and DT abilities is not at all linear, but "complex and multidimensional." [5]

While little research has been conducted on the impact of sleep deprivation on divergent thinking, one study by J. A. Horne illustrated that even when motivation to perform well is maintained, sleep can still impact divergent thinking performance. [6]

Divergent thinking and mental health

Divergent thinking has been associated with a more positive mood and a higher incidence of both positive and negative mind wandering. [7] [8]

Divergent thinking and psychopathology

Divergent thinking can be counterproductive when used excessively. Schizophrenia could be partially seen as a variation of extreme divergent thinking since both are characterized by disorganized actions and thoughts. [9]

Therapeutic value of divergent thinking

The ability to use divergent thinking is said to increase the mental status of young adults according to Bennliure and Moral. [10]

Effects of positive and negative mood

In a study at the University of Bergen, Norway, the effects of positive and negative mood on divergent thinking were examined. [11] Nearly two hundred art and psychology students participated, first by measuring their moods with an adjective checklist before performing the required tasks. The results showed a clear distinction in performance between those with a self-reported positive versus negative mood:

Results showed natural positive mood to facilitate significantly task performance and negative mood to inhibit it… The results suggest that persons in elevated moods may prefer satisficing strategies, which would lead to a higher number of proposed solutions. Persons in a negative mood may choose optimizing strategies and be more concerned with the quality of their ideas, which is detrimental to performance on this kind of task.

— (Vosburg, 1998)

A series of related studies suggested a link between positive mood and the promotion of cognitive flexibility. [12] [13] In a 1990 study by Murray, Sujan, Hirt and Sujan, [14] this hypothesis was examined more closely and "found positive mood participants were able to see relations between concepts”, as well as demonstrating advanced abilities "in distinguishing the differences between concepts". [11]

Divergent thinking modeling

Both convergent and divergent processing have been subject to modeling. The first process has been modeled by emulating responses to the Remote Associates Test (RAT) by Olteţeanu and Falomir (2015) [15] and Klein and Badia (2015). [16] The RAT was modeled by both research teams as a proof-of-concept to investigate how remote associative concepts relate to statistically based Natural Language Processing techniques and how these connections relate to the convergent and divergent cognitive processes involved in creativity. According to Klein and Badia, distant associates are tracked down and chosen using a strictly lexical-based modeling technique, where both the frequency of co-occurrence and the frequency of each term in the corpus are valued in the convergent and divergent parts of the process.

On a more divergent focus, Klein and Badia (2022), [17] and Olteţeanu and Falomir (2016) [18] proposed a divergent thinking emulation by modeling the Alternative Uses Task (AUT). The former researchers proposed a simple co-occurrence based method with and without grammatical labeling to solve this test. The later applied what they named Object Replacement and Object Composition with specific reference to AUT. Other ideas for DT generation, include Veale and Li (2016) [19] template approach, and López-Ortega (2013) [20] who proposed an application of divergent exploration in a multi agent system.  

See also

References

  1. ↑ Dyson, Scott Benjamin; Chang, Yu-Lin; Chen, Hsueh-Chih; Hsiung, Hsiang-Yu; Tseng, Chien-Chih; Chang, Jen-Ho (March 2016). "The effect of tabletop role-playing games on the creative potential and emotional creativity of Taiwanese college students". Thinking Skills and Creativity. 19: 88–96. doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2015.10.004.
  2. ↑ Asana. "Convergent vs. Divergent Thinking: Finding Balance [2024] • Asana". Asana. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
  3. ↑ Lieberman, J. Nina (1965-12-01). "Playfulness and Divergent Thinking: An Investigation of their Relationship at the Kindergarten Level". The Journal of Genetic Psychology. 107 (2): 219–224. doi:10.1080/00221325.1965.10533661. ISSN   0022-1325. PMID   5852592.
  4. ↑ de Chantal, Pier-Luc; Gagnon-St-Pierre, Émilie; Markovits, Henry (July 2020). "Divergent Thinking Promotes Deductive Reasoning in Preschoolers" . Child Development. 91 (4): 1081–1097. doi:10.1111/cdev.13278. ISSN   0009-3920. PMID   31297799.
  5. ↑ Fusi, Giulia; Lavolpe, Sara; Crepaldi, Maura; Rusconi, Maria Luisa (2020-06-23). "The Controversial Effect of Age on Divergent Thinking Abilities: A Systematic Review" . The Journal of Creative Behavior. 55 (2): 374–395. doi:10.1002/jocb.461. ISSN   0022-0175.
  6. ↑ Horne, J. A. (1988). "Sleep Loss and "Divergent Thinking" Ability" (PDF). Sleep. 11 (6): 528–536. doi: 10.1093/sleep/11.6.528 . PMID   3238256. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-10. Retrieved 2015-05-31.
  7. ↑ Akbari Chermahini, Soghra; Hommel, Bernhard (September 2012). "Creative mood swings: divergent and convergent thinking affect mood in opposite ways". Psychological Research. 76 (5): 634–640. doi:10.1007/s00426-011-0358-z. ISSN   0340-0727. PMC   3412079 . PMID   21695470.
  8. ↑ Yamaoka, Akina; Yukawa, Shintaro (2020-04-23). "Mind wandering in creative problem-solving: Relationships with divergent thinking and mental health". PLOS ONE. 15 (4): e0231946. Bibcode:2020PLoSO..1531946Y. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231946 . ISSN   1932-6203. PMC   7180068 . PMID   32325483.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  9. ↑ Kim, Kyung Hee; Pierce, Robert A. (2013). "Convergent Versus Divergent Thinking" . In Carayannis, Elias G. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Creativity, Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. New York, NY: Springer. pp. 245–250. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-3858-8_22. ISBN   978-1-4614-3858-8 . Retrieved 2024-04-30.
  10. ↑ Alfonso-Benlliure, Vicente; Meléndez Moral, Juan Carlos (2022-04-19). "Creativity as a "vaccine" for depressed mood: coping and divergent thinking in young adults". Anales de Psicología. 38 (2): 209–218. doi: 10.6018/analesps.481761 . hdl: 10550/96484 . ISSN   1695-2294.
  11. 1 2 Vosburg, Suzanne K. (1998-04-01). "The Effects of Positive and Negative Mood on Divergent-Thinking Performance". Creativity Research Journal. 11 (2): 165–172. doi:10.1207/s15326934crj1102_6. ISSN   1040-0419.
  12. ↑ Isen, Alice M.; Daubman, Kimberly A. (1984-12-01). "The influence of affect on categorization". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 47 (6): 1206–1217. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.47.6.1206. ISSN   1939-1315.
  13. ↑ Isen, Alice M.; Johnson, Mitzi M.; Mertz, Elizabeth; Robinson, Gregory F. (1985). "The influence of positive affect on the unusualness of word associations". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 48 (6): 1413–1426. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.48.6.1413. PMID   4020605.
  14. ↑ Murray, Noel; Sujan, Harish; Hirt, Edward R.; Sujan, Mita (1990). "The influence of mood on categorization: A cognitive flexibility interpretation". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 59 (3): 411–425. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.59.3.411.
  15. ↑ Olteţeanu, Ana-Maria; Falomir, Zoe (December 2015). "comRAT-C: A computational compound Remote Associates Test solver based on language data and its comparison to human performance" . Pattern Recognition Letters. 67: 81–90. Bibcode:2015PaReL..67...81O. doi:10.1016/j.patrec.2015.05.015.
  16. ↑ Klein, Ariel; Badia, Toni (March 2015). "The Usual and the Unusual: Solving Remote Associates Test Tasks Using Simple Statistical Natural Language Processing Based on Language Use" . The Journal of Creative Behavior. 49 (1): 13–37. doi:10.1002/jocb.57.
  17. ↑ Klein, Ariel; Badia, Toni (2022-08-18). "Where Divergent Ideas Converge: Answers to AUT Found on Short List of Word Co-Occurrences Terms" . Creativity Research Journal. 36: 138–154. doi:10.1080/10400419.2022.2103314. ISSN   1040-0419. S2CID   251684394.
  18. ↑ Olteţeanu, Ana-Maria; Falomir, Zoe (2016-09-01). "Object replacement and object composition in a creative cognitive system. Towards a computational solver of the Alternative Uses Test" . Cognitive Systems Research. From human to artificial cognition (and back): new perspectives of cognitively inspired AI systems. 39: 15–32. doi:10.1016/j.cogsys.2015.12.011. ISSN   1389-0417. S2CID   34742279.
  19. ↑ Veale, Tony; Li, Guofu (2016-04-01). "Distributed Divergent Creativity: Computational Creative Agents at Web Scale" . Cognitive Computation. 8 (2): 175–186. doi:10.1007/s12559-015-9337-9. ISSN   1866-9964. S2CID   255615490.
  20. ↑ López-Ortega, Omar (2013-07-01). "Computer-assisted creativity: Emulation of cognitive processes on a multi-agent system" . Expert Systems with Applications. 40 (9): 3459–3470. doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2012.12.054. ISSN   0957-4174.
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