Are children really more creative than adults? | Elisabeth McClure | TEDxAarhus

Summary

The video script challenges the popular belief that children are inherently more creative than adults, debunking the myth of a 1960s study that claimed 98% of children are creative geniuses, a study that never actually existed. It delves into the complexity of creativity, emphasizing the need for both originality and appropriateness. The speaker, a child development researcher, explains the importance of divergent and convergent thinking in creativity and suggests that children and adults can learn from each other's strengths in these areas. The script advocates for co-creative teams where adults and children collaborate, leveraging children's imagination and adults' experience to foster a balanced and effective creative process.

Takeaways

• 🤔 The popular belief that children are more creative than adults is based on a non-existent study by George Land, which has been debunked.
• 🎨 Creativity is a complex process involving both originality and appropriateness, which requires a balance of divergent and convergent thinking.
• 👶 Children excel at divergent thinking, which includes exploration, idea generation, and risk-taking, but may lack in convergent thinking skills like evaluation and logic.
• 👨‍💼 Adults tend to have stronger convergent thinking skills, which are crucial for focusing, persisting through challenges, and bringing ideas to fruition.
• 🧠 Cognitive flexibility, the ability to adapt to new information, is higher in children and decreases with age, reflecting the brain's development from exploration to specialization.
• 🌱 The idea that growing up kills creativity is a myth; rather, it's about maintaining a balance between the cognitive flexibility of children and the inhibitory control of adults.
• 🤝 Co-creative teams that combine the strengths of children and adults can enhance collective creativity, with children contributing imagination and adults providing guidance and experience.
• 🏡 In家庭教育中, parents can foster creativity by allowing children to take the lead in play and involving them as authentic partners in household decisions.
• 🏫 In schools, teachers can engage children as co-educators and collaborators, using inquiry-based methods and guided play to support both divergent and convergent thinking skills.
• 💼 In industry, children should be seen as co-designers with valuable insights, contributing to product development and innovation.
• 🌟 The world needs a balance of creativity that combines the strengths of both children and adults to address rapid changes and complex challenges.

Q & A

What is the main claim made by Sir Ken Robinson in his TED talk?

Sir Ken Robinson claims in his TED talk that children are more creative than adults, a notion that has been widely popularized and is the most viewed TED talk of all time.

What is the alleged longitudinal study by George Land that Sir Ken Robinson references?

George Land supposedly conducted a study in the 1960s that claimed 98% of five-year-olds are creative geniuses, but only 2% of adults are. However, the speaker states that this study does not exist or has never been published, and no evidence of it could be found.

What are the two main features of the creative process according to the speaker?

The two main features of the creative process are originality and appropriateness. Originality refers to coming up with new ideas, while appropriateness means that the idea is meaningful and relevant for the situation.

What is the difference between divergent thinking and convergent thinking?

Divergent thinking is about exploring possibilities, generating ideas, and taking risks, while convergent thinking involves evaluating, using logic, and making decisions to choose the best solution given the situation.

Why do children have a perceived advantage in creativity?

Children are perceived as more creative because they excel in divergent thinking, which includes exploration, idea generation, and risk-taking. They also have cognitive flexibility, which allows them to change their minds based on new information.

How does brain development relate to the creative abilities of children and adults?

In early childhood, brain development focuses on exploration, forming over a million new neural connections per second. As children grow, the brain begins to prune these connections, focusing on those most needed based on environmental interactions, which leads to specialization in the context they are in.

What is cognitive flexibility, and how does it differ between children and adults?

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to change one's mind when presented with new information that conflicts with existing biases. Children, particularly four-year-olds, exhibit high cognitive flexibility, changing their minds based on a single new piece of information, while adults tend to be less flexible in this regard.

Why is it a myth that adults are not creative?

The notion that adults are not creative is a myth because creativity requires a balance of divergent and convergent thinking. While children may excel in divergent thinking, adults bring important convergent thinking skills that help focus and persist through challenges to bring ideas into reality.

What is the proposal for enhancing collective creative abilities?

The speaker proposes that children and adults work together in co-creative teams, where adults can learn from children's imagination and idea generation, and children can learn from adults' guidance and experience.

How can parents and teachers support creativity in children?

Parents can let children take the lead in play and invite them to be authentic partners in household decisions. Teachers can view children as co-educators and collaborators in the classroom, using inquiry-based methods and guided play to support both divergent and convergent thinking skills.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 The Myth of Children's Superior Creativity

The speaker begins by challenging the popular belief that children are more creative than adults, referencing Sir Ken Robinson's influential TED talk. They reveal that the foundational study supporting this idea, attributed to George Land, does not exist. The speaker, a child development researcher at the Lego Foundation, explains the complexity of creativity, which involves both originality and appropriateness. They share a personal story from childhood to illustrate the difference between imagination and creativity, emphasizing that creativity requires more than just ideas—it requires the ability to bring those ideas to fruition.

05:01

🧠 Divergent and Convergent Thinking in Creativity

This paragraph delves into the cognitive processes behind creativity: divergent thinking, which involves generating ideas, and convergent thinking, which is about evaluating and selecting the best ideas. The speaker points out that while children excel in divergent thinking, adults tend to be better at convergent thinking. They discuss the importance of balancing these two types of thinking for true creativity. The speaker also addresses the myth that children learn more flexibly than adults, citing research by Alison Gopnik that shows how children's cognitive flexibility decreases as they grow older, which aligns with the brain's development from exploration to specialization.

10:02

🌱 Cultivating Creativity in Children and Adults

The speaker argues against the idea that growing up kills creativity, suggesting instead that adults can maintain their creative potential by balancing divergent and convergent thinking. They explain how inhibitory control, a part of convergent thinking, can actually enhance divergent thinking by preventing fixation on the first solution to a problem. The speaker uses the classic candle problem to illustrate how adults often fail to see alternative solutions due to preconceived notions. They propose that creativity requires a balance between exploration and focus, and that finding this balance is essential for both children and adults.

15:03

🤝 Co-Creative Collaboration Between Children and Adults

In the final paragraph, the speaker proposes co-creative teams where children and adults can collaborate to enhance each other's creative abilities. They suggest that adults can learn from children's imagination and idea generation, while children can benefit from adults' guidance and experience. The speaker provides practical examples of how this collaboration can occur in play, at home, in the classroom, and in industry. They emphasize the importance of not glorifying or shaming each other for the creative strengths that come with different stages of human development and conclude by advocating for a collective enhancement of creative abilities to improve the world.

Keywords

💡Creativity

Creativity in the video is defined as a complex process involving both originality and appropriateness, where appropriateness refers to ideas that are meaningful and relevant to a given situation. The video challenges the common myth that children are inherently more creative than adults, suggesting instead that creativity is a nuanced developmental process. For example, the speaker mentions that while children may have original ideas, they often lack the ability to make those ideas appropriate or feasible, highlighting the need for a balance between divergent and convergent thinking.

💡Divergent Thinking

Divergent thinking is described as the ability to explore possibilities, generate ideas, take risks, and be flexible. It is associated with children's natural tendency to imagine and explore without constraints. The video uses the example of the speaker's childhood desire to build an elaborate tree house, which was an original but not necessarily appropriate idea, illustrating the need for divergent thinking to be balanced with convergent thinking for true creativity.

💡Convergent Thinking

Convergent thinking involves evaluating, applying logic, exercising inhibitory control, persisting, and focusing to decide on the best course of action from a set of possibilities. The video emphasizes that while children excel at divergent thinking, adults typically have stronger convergent thinking skills, which are crucial for turning ideas into reality. It is suggested that a balance of both types of thinking is necessary for creativity.

💡Cognitive Flexibility

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt one's thinking in response to new information or changing circumstances. The video references research by Alison Gopnik, which shows that young children are highly flexible in their thinking and can easily change their minds based on new information, a trait that tends to decrease with age as people develop more fixed beliefs and biases.

💡Myth Debunking

The video script includes a segment dedicated to myth debunking, specifically challenging the widespread belief that children are naturally more creative than adults. It points out that this idea is based on a non-existent study, suggesting that such myths can be harmful and that a more nuanced understanding of creativity is needed.

💡Child Development

Child development is discussed in the context of how children's brains are wired for exploration and idea generation, forming over a million new neural connections every second in early life. The video explains how this early development focuses on divergent thinking, which is crucial for creativity, but also how it transitions into a period of pruning, where convergent thinking abilities become more refined.

💡Imagination

Imagination is presented as a component of creativity but not synonymous with it. The video distinguishes between having big ideas, which is a form of imagination, and the actual creative process, which involves bringing those ideas to fruition. The speaker's childhood dream of building a tree house with a swimming pool and ice-skating rink illustrates the power of imagination but also its limitations without the practical skills to realize such ideas.

💡Appropriateness

Appropriateness in the context of creativity refers to the ability to generate ideas that are not only original but also meaningful and relevant to the situation. The video argues that while children may have highly imaginative and original ideas, they often lack the understanding of constraints and practicality needed for those ideas to be considered creative.

💡Co-creative Teams

Co-creative teams are proposed as a solution for harnessing the creative potential of both children and adults. The video suggests that by working together, children can provide the imagination and idea generation, while adults can offer guidance, experience, and the ability to evaluate and implement ideas. This collaboration is presented as a way to enhance collective creativity.

💡Inhibitory Control

Inhibitory control is the cognitive ability to suppress or inhibit impulses, which is crucial for convergent thinking. The video explains how this ability helps adults to focus and persist in the face of challenges, and also to consider alternative solutions rather than fixating on the first idea that comes to mind. It is presented as an essential skill for creativity that can be enhanced through collaboration with children.

💡Cognitive Development

Cognitive development is discussed in terms of how children's brains are highly adaptable and ready for exploration, but as they grow, they become more specialized for their specific environments. The video uses this concept to explain the decrease in cognitive flexibility over time and the importance of balancing this with the development of convergent thinking skills.

Highlights

The myth that children are more creative than adults is debunked.

Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk on children's creativity is based on a non-existent study.

The study by George Land, which claimed 98% of children are creative geniuses, was never published.

NASA and Head Start have no record of George Land's study.

Creativity is a complex process involving more than just imagination.

Creativity requires both originality and appropriateness.

Divergent thinking and convergent thinking are both essential for creativity.

Children excel in divergent thinking, such as exploration and idea generation.

Adults are typically better at convergent thinking, including evaluation and logic.

Cognitive flexibility allows children to change their minds with new information, unlike adults.

Brain development in children focuses on exploration and later on pruning neural connections.

Children's cognitive flexibility decreases as they grow and specialize in their environment.

Adults can be more rigid in their convergent thinking, which can hinder creativity.

Inhibitory control in adults can enhance divergent thinking by suppressing common solutions.

Creativity requires a balance between divergent and convergent thinking.

Co-creative teams involving children and adults can enhance collective creative abilities.

Children and adults should respect each other's strengths in creativity.

Practical suggestions for co-creative collaboration in play, home, school, and industry.

Emphasizing creative balance is crucial for addressing the world's rapidly changing challenges.

Transcripts

[Music]

[Applause]

who here thinks that children are more

creative than adults raise your hands

okay now what if I told you that isn't

true you're probably thinking but wait

I've heard statistics on there so

there's a there's a TED talk on this and

you're right about that in fact the most

viewed TED talk of all time

by Sir Ken Robinson is based on this

very idea that children are more

creative than adults in another popular

talk he justified this view with a

longitudinal study from the 1960s by

George land which claimed to have found

that 98% of five-year-olds are creative

geniuses but that only 2% of adults are

but what Sir Ken Robinson didn't know at

the time is that this study doesn't

actually exist or to be a careful

scientist I should say I haven't been

able to find any evidence that the study

ever happened so

the study itself was never published so

I had to track down the organizations

that George land claims that he had

worked with on the study that's NASA and

the US organization called headstart

neither had ever heard of him and

neither had any record that the study

had ever happened in fact the NASA

archivists that I spoke to said that she

thought maybe this study was just an

urban myth but this idea that children

are more creative than adults

it feels so true doesn't it and you know

the research that's been done since that

talk in 2006

has shown us that there's a lot more to

creativity than what we originally

thought you see I'm a child development

researcher at the Lego foundation where

I study creativity and learning and the

work that I've done there has shown me

just how complex the creative process is

and how nuanced its development is as

children grow but you know we all know

this intuitively too because we are all

children once and here we all are as

adults we've lived this I'll give you an

example when I was seven or eight I used

to love building these stick forts in

the woods by my house you know the kind

where you take a tree branch and you

lean it up against a tree trunk in a

circle and if I built it just right it

would last me a while and I could go

there every day after school with my

best friend and we'd save a special

little snack from our lunches we'd climb

inside and eat chocolate pudding with

just our fingers but those forts they

were they were more than just sticks in

my mind I had plans for those things I

somehow came up with this elaborate plan

for the perfect tree house that we could

build so first of all would be up in the

trees it wouldn't be down on the ground

and inside it there would be a swimming

pool but you could cover up the swimming

pool and make it into an ice-skating

rink when the season was right I mean I

had ideas I had big plans for this thing

but you know I had never got around to

building that tree house which is

probably a good thing because it would

have been a safety hazard but I can

still feel the exhilaration of having

those ideas and imagining just how cool

that tree house would be I had a pretty

good imagination but I really had no

idea what it would take to bring that

idea of the tree house in my mind into

reality and that right there is key

creativity is not the same thing as

imagination or having big ideas

there's something else involved that

takes those ideas into reality into

fruition and creative expression there

are actually many parts to the creative

process but it can be summed up by two

main features originality and

appropriateness and by appropriateness I

mean something that's meaningful and

relevant for the situation at hand so

when I had this idea for a swimming pool

ice-skating rink treehouse that was

original but it was not appropriate not

given the constraints that I would have

faced as a seven-year-old with only

sticks for building materials no

knowledge of engineering or building no

access to contractors and of course no

budget so I might call it an imaginative

idea but it wasn't technically creative

because to be creative it would also

have to be appropriate now to get this

combination of originality and

appropriateness you have to be capable

of two things divergent thinking which

is basically about exploring

possibilities coming up with ideas and

convergent thinking which is about

basically deciding what to do you take a

look at all of those possibilities

you've come up with and you decide on

the best one given your situation

divergent thinking includes things like

exploration originality idea generation

risk-taking and flexibility convergent

thinking includes things like evaluation

logic inhibitory control persistence and

focus but the key is that you need both

of these things divergent thinking and

convergent thinking to get to those two

main ingredients for creativity

originality and appropriateness but now

let's think about the balance of skills

that you typically associate with

children and adults so when you're

thinking about exploration idea

generation risk-taking who are you

thinking more of children or adults

children right yeah and when you think

about evaluation logic and hibbott or

ikan soul control children are

adults and which of these two do you

think of most often when you think about

creativity well many of us have a very

strong bias to think almost exclusively

about divergent thinking and it's really

easy to do in fact researchers even

share this bias many of the studies on

creativity that exists right now

actually look at divergent thinking and

the problem is even greater when you

look at the research on childhood

creativity there's an upcoming review

that looked at all of the studies on

children and creativity and it found

that 82% of those studies looked at

divergent thinking so we're not alone in

this but keeping all of that in mind we

need to separate fact from myth so let's

take a look at the following statement

children learn more flexibly than adults

that's true and it can be seen pretty

clearly in some work by a researcher

named Alison Gopnik she's been looking

at what happens when you give

information to children and adults that

does not support an existing bias that

they have in other words how willing are

they to change their minds when they're

given new information and this is an

ability called cognitive flexibility now

in her studies when adults are giving

given this evidence that does not

support their bias that conflict

conflicting information does not change

their view of the world but it's totally

different when you look at

four-year-olds four-year-olds will

totally change their mind based on a

single new piece of information and

she's found in her research that this

cognitive flexibility decreases steadily

from childhood to adulthood

and that makes a lot of sense when you

think about it

children don't really have that much

evidence in their database yet right so

a single new piece of information that's

gonna be pretty meaningful to them where

as adults they have a whole lifetime of

data points in that database to support

what they already believe and so one new

piece of information will come with a

grain of salt and this actually matches

what we see in brain development so this

image here reflects the sin

optik density in the human brain at

birth that's sort of a complicated way

of saying the number of neural

connections in the brain now in the

earlier development focuses on

exploration in fact in the first few

years of life more than 1 million new

neural connections are formed every

second but as childhood goes on

development begins to focus on pruning

down those connections to the ones that

are most needed based on interactions

with the environment so you can put it

this way children are born into the

world ready to adapt to whatever

environment they're born into but then

they specialized for the context they're

actually in it's pretty ingenious so

keeping that in mind let's go back to

this fact check children learn more

flexibly than adults yes this is true

that's strength along with their

abilities in imagination and idea

generation that means that children have

enormous creative potential but it

doesn't mean that they're more creative

and that's because flexibility is only

one of those abilities needed for

creativity and it just so happens to

fall into that divergent thinking

category now let's take a look at this

other idea that adults are not creative

that somehow growing up kills our

creativity

well sometimes growing up can do that

yes sometimes we can get a bit out of

balance and become quite rigid in our

convergent thinking abilities right we

can become afraid of exploration of of

trying new things of risk-taking and in

that sense young children can be our

role models but this notion that if we

just stayed children if we never grew up

in our minds that somehow we would be

more creative that's false because while

children are great at exploration

they're not always great at getting the

job done or or choosing the best

solution for the situation at hand and

in fact in adulthood having high levels

of convergent thinking and low levels

are high

of divergent thinking and low levels of

convergent thinking that's a profile

that's associated with adult ADHD so

these convergent abilities are actually

really important for helping us to focus

and to persist through challenges toward

our goals surprisingly there are

actually important elements of

convergent thinking that even enhance

our divergent thinking abilities so

we'll take inhibitory control for an

example inhibitory control is an ability

that helps us to suppress or inhibit our

impulses so for example I've been told

that I need to stay on this big red dot

for my whole talk fortunately for the

camera operators I have the inhibitory

control to follow those instructions but

a four-year-old's probably wouldn't be

able to do that for a full 15 minutes

right for the same inhibitory control

that keeps us from following all our

impulses and exploring everything we see

it's the same inhibitory control that

keeps us from fixating too much on the

first or most common solution to a

problem and helps us to then imagine

other possibilities I'll give you a

classic example let's say I gave you a

match box a box of tacks and a candle

and I asked you to try to attach that

candle to a wall what would you do I'll

give away the ending most people will

take some tacks and try to tack the

candle onto the wall directly and others

will try to melt the candle a bit and

use the wax as a kind of glue to get

that candle up on the wall right but

neither of these solutions is going to

work the best solution is to tack the

box to the wall the box that the tacks

came in and then place the candle into

the box but most adults become so

fixated on that box is just a container

for the tacks they don't even realize

it's a resource for the problem and

that's where inhibitory control comes in

it can help you to suppress that

traditional use of the box and see other

possibilities there

so you can think of it this way

creativity requires balance if the focus

becomes too heavy on divergent thinking

we can get stuck an idea generation and

never bring ideas into reality if the

focus becomes too heavy on convergent

thinking we can become so stuck in our

knowledge of constraints that we fail to

recognize great ideas when they come

along so how do we find that sweet spot

that balance between the two how do we

maintain cognitive flexibility while

balancing that with inhibitory control

how do we maintain a fresh outlook on

the rural world while also balancing

that with expertise we have to find some

way to be both spontaneous and

reflective and that is a tough balance

to strike so how do we get there here's

my proposal

what if children and adults worked

together on co-creative teens and I

don't just mean inviting kids to your

work meetings because they're cute or

encouraging parents to be more involved

in their children's science fair

projects these are not true co-creative

teams what I'm talking about is real

true creative collaboration where adults

can look to children as role models in

imagination and idea generation and

children can look to adults for guidance

and experience if the two truly respect

the strengths that the other brings to

the table those abilities might just

become contagious under the playful

guidance of adults children can start to

think about constraints to problem-solve

to select high-quality ideas and under

the leadership of children adults can

rediscover their cognitive flexibility

and start considering off-the-wall ideas

that they never would have entertained

otherwise but what does that look like

practically well at play parents can let

their

children take the lead in play asking

open-ended questions and then following

their children's ideas no matter how

silly they may seem at home parents can

invite their children to be authentic

partners in the household for example by

inviting dinner suggestions and then

helping their child to select the best

one gather supplies and then cook it at

school teachers can look at children as

more than just consumers of information

but instead as co educators and

collaborators in the classroom using

inquiry based methods and guided play

techniques they can build in

opportunities for uncertainty in the

classroom and supports the children's

budding convergent thinking skills while

also supporting their own divergent

thinking abilities in industry we should

think of children not just as end-users

of products but as co designers who have

ideas and insights that could transform

and change the field places like kids

team at University of Washington have

had great success with this and others

could too

but I think the key is that we neither

glorify nor shame one another for the

creative strengths that are a normal

part of human development children are

not creative geniuses no but we have a

lot to learn from them and we should be

careful not to communicate to them that

the highest form of learning is

expertise in the same way adults are not

creative failures and we should be

careful not to shame one another for the

knowledge and experience that is so

critical to bringing ideas into reality

I think we have a long way to go as

parents as teachers as decision-makers

to start emphasizing that creative

balance but it's what's required the

world is changing more rapidly than ever

before and generating unpredictable

dilemmas

but if children and adults can work and

play together to enhance our collective

creative abilities then I think we have

a pretty good chance of making this

world a better place

thank you

[Applause]

[Music]