You Were 96% More Creative as a Child

You were 96% more creative as a child, understand the reasons behind decreased creativity and how can we avoid it for future generations.

If you ask a 4-year-old to tell you a story, you will most probably hear a mysterious fairytale from an alternate universe. If you place a chocolate bar on a table and ask the child not to have it, chances are he or she will find the most creative routes to devour that chocolate bar. So what happens to the ability to imagine, create, and think outside-the-box as the child grows older?

At TEDxTucson, Dr. George Land revealed astounding results of a study he conducted in 1968, as NASA wanted to have a tool of assessment in unlocking the secret behind innovation and recruiting the most creative scientists and engineers. This assessment was proven to be a success for NASA’s purposes, and hence, was developed to test 4 to 5-year-old children in a longitudinal study. The same group of children were assessed over the course of 10 years, and here are the astonishing results:

• 4 to 5 years old: 98% of the group were considered genius on the creative thinking scale.
• 10 years old: Only 30% of the children now fell in the genius category of creativity and imagination.
• 15 years old: The percentage of those considered genius has dropped to 12%.
• The same test was given to adults: Only 2% scored within the genius creative scale.

One obvious scientific explanation as to why creativity subsides as we grow older is the development of our pre-frontal cortex. The side of the brain responsible for cognitive skills – logic, realism, and facts; in other words, “rule-based” behavior. Our prefrontal cortex does not begin to fully develop until we enter our 20’s, contributing to giving us the ability to make better sound judgments and decisions. This also means that we start to lose our ability for divergent thinking, which was the thought process used to produce creative ideas by exploring numerous conceivable solutions.

However, we cannot hold our pre-frontal cortex fully accountable for the sharp drop in creativity. Fear is one of the key culprits for that. We are conditioned through years of education to believe that success amounts to avoiding mistakes, to color inside the lines, and strive for the right answer. As students, we begin to try matching what our teacher or parent wants to hear, and we lose sight of our originality. We slowly begin to learn how to judge ourselves first and others second when making mistakes or — god forbids — fail. We talk ourselves out of imagination, disruptive ideas, and the unknown.

As we successfully graduate school, our thoughts are altered to “why risk being random when you know you can be right?”. Unfortunately, what has worked for sure is what worked in the past – thus, robbing ourselves from exploring unknown routes.

If we say that we value creativity and its byproducts in schools, universities, and workplaces – we must ultimately be willing to confront our behaviors with all honesty, we must be open to letting go of generational schooling and parenting. Below is a list of “creativity killers” that can be commonly found in schools and households, created by Harvard psychologists, Hennessy and Amabile (1992):

• Restricting choice – Giving the child little to no say as to what activities they can engage in.
• Surveillance – Close observation of the child, making them feel like their every move is being watched.
• Evaluation – Constant assessment of what the child is doing, always looking for errors in their accomplishments.
• Rewards – The immoderate use of gifts and prizes, depriving the child of his or her intrinsic sense of motivation.
• Competition – The all-or-nothing approach to competition – placing the child in a win-lose position, where only one person can be the winner.
• Over-control – Continually directing the child on how to do things right, often imbeds the thoughts that “exploration is a waste of time”.
• Pressure – Enforcing superb expectations for the child’s accomplishments.

Raising a generation of disruptive thinkers, of revolutionists, of highly creative individuals is a responsibility that lies on all members of the society. We all agree that it is absolutely necessary to regulate a child’s behavior into conforming to social norms. However, there should be a sense of balance that allows children to have time for discovering, experimenting, and wondering “what if” – while granting them the opportunity to make mistakes and reorient their ideas without adult interference.

 References

Amabile, T.M., & Hennessey, B.A. (1992). The motivation for creativity in children. In T. Pittman & A. Boggiano (Eds.), Achievement and motivation: A social developmental perspective (pp. 54-74). New York: Cambridge University Press

Hennessey, Beth A., and T. M. Amabile. (1987) Creativity and Learning. Washington, D.C.: National Education Association, 1987.