Science Can Make You More Creative!
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Support for NPR and the following message come from Jarl and Pamela Moan, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen.
Hey everyone, it's Emily Kwong. Before we start the show, you may have heard that President Trump has issued an executive order seeking to block all federal funding to NPR. This is the latest in a series of threats to media organizations across the country. Millions of people, people like you, depend on the NPR network as a vital source of news, entertainment, information, and connection. And we are proud to be here for you. Now more than ever, we need you to be here for us. It's time to join the movement to defend public media. And if you already support us via NPR Plus or another means, thank you. Your support means so much to me, to the whole team, now more than ever, because you are the reason that NPR shows are freely available to everyone.
And we are proud to do this work for you and with you. Thanks so much. You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
Who is Zorana Ivcevic Pringle?
Hi Short Wavers, Burleigh McCoy filling the host chair today, and I'd like you to meet psychologist Zorana Ivcevic-Pringle. When Zorana was an undergraduate, she was searching for a thesis topic. To spark ideas, she was reading everything she could get her hands on, and she stumbled across work from the 1960s, during the space age, about creativity. She read that creative people often have personality traits that don't seem to go together.
Creative individuals at times can be extroverted, other times very introverted. They can be playful, but also very serious about their work, can seem naive and see things with fresh eyes, but also be very focused in their work.
Why isn't creativity just a trait?
In the two decades Zorana's been studying creativity, she's realized that even though creative people are unique, it's not because they're born with it. But that idea that some people are creative and some people aren't, what scientists call a fixed mindset, can stop creativity in its tracks.
Oftentimes, just the fact that we don't think of ourselves as creative is going to prevent us from ever attempting it.
But this idea is pervasive. We can sometimes think it's only the Einsteins or Beyonces of the world who are creative.
What are Big C and mini-C creativity?
Scientists call those people Big C creators. Big C as big, influential, creativity, eminent creators. But they are not the only ones. Creativity exists on a continuum for what we call mini-C, creativity in the process of learning.
One example of mini-C might be your unique way of learning times tables.
Little c in everyday interactions and activities. Like gifting your friend a unique present. And Pro-C, that is professional creativity in our work contexts.
Like designing new software, writing a novel, or making a science podcast. So even if you aren't big C-level like Beyonce, you and anyone can always start by opting in to being creative. Which Zorana learned the hard way, after years of limiting herself.
How can you choose to be creative?
I concluded that I was not creative, but I also noticed somebody else, a best friend of mine, who was creative, and I wanted whatever she had. I wanted to understand how is she able to do things that I did not think that I could do at the time. In retrospect, I think I was able to do it, but that I was not willing to make that choice.
That has changed, and it culminated into a very creative thing, a book called The Creativity Choice, about how creative people can stick with an idea. So today on the show, the science of creativity. We talk about how psychologists study it and the choices people make to grow their creativity. You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
Support for NPR and the following message come from Jarl and Pamela Moan, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen.
Okay, Zorana, so now let's talk about how you go about studying and measuring something so vague and mysterious as creativity. How do scientists study it?
Scientists have lots of different tools to study creativity. So if we think of creativity in its most basic form of coming up with original and appropriate or effective ideas, scientists have developed tests, oftentimes called tests of creative thinking or tests of divergent thinking.
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