Researchers have developed a far better method for training people to be creative. This method is based on narrative theory and helps people be creative in the same way children and artists are: making up stories that imagine alternative worlds, shift perspective and generate unexpected actions.

A new method to spark creativity and innovation

The narrative method recognises that we're all creative. According to professor Angus Fletcher, we are often so obsessed with the idea that some people are more creative than others that we undervalue some people's creativity. However, we should train creativity in the right way. Since the 1950s, creativity has been trained using divergent thinking - a "computational approach" that treats the brain as a logic machine. But divergent thinking has not been that successful as it relies on data about the problems of the past. It can't help prepare people for new challenges.

Everyone is creative

The narrative method uses the techniques that writers use to create stories. For example:<ul><li>Developing new worlds in your mind. If employees are asked to think about an unusual customer, then imagine a world where all customers are like that. Would that change your business?</li><li>Perspective shifting. An executive at a company might be asked to answer a problem by thinking like another team member.</li></ul> The scenarios you dream up will not actually happen, but they can open you up to imagine radically different possibilities.

The narrative method of training for creativity

The narrative method of training creativity through telling stories is how young children are creative. But creativity in children drops after four or five years of schooling when children start intensive logical semantic and memory training. Organisations that train employees to be creative no longer need to strive to hire creative people. Instead, they can employ a diverse group of people and train them to be creative.

Hire diverse, then train to be creative

Summary: A new method, based on narrative theory, helps spark creativity and innovation in people.Source: Ohio State UniversityResearchers have developed a new method for training people to be creative, one that shows promise of succeeding far better than current ways of sparking innovation.This new method, based on narrative theory, helps people be creative in the way children and artists are: By making up stories that imagine alternative worlds, shift perspective and generate unexpected actions.The narrative method works by recognizing that we’re all creative, said&nbsp;Angus Fletcher, who developed the method and is a professor of&nbsp;English&nbsp;and a member of The Ohio State University’s&nbsp;Project Narrative.“We as a society radically undervalue the creativity of kids and many others because we are obsessed with the idea that some people are more creative than others,” Fletcher said.“But the reality is that we’re just not training creativity in the right way.”Fletcher and Mike Benveniste, also of Project Narrative, discussed the narrative method of training creativity in a just-published article in the&nbsp;Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.The two researchers successfully used the narrative approach to train members of the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College. Fletcher wrote&nbsp;a publicly available training guide&nbsp;based on his methods that was tailored to officers and advanced enlisted personnel.They have also worked with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the Ohio State College of Engineering and several Fortune 50 companies to teach creativity to their staffs and students.The current foundation of creativity training is the technique known as divergent thinking, which has been in use since the 1950s.&nbsp; It is a “computational approach” to creativity that treats the brain as a logic machine, Fletcher said.It works through exercises designed to, among other things, expand working memory, foster analogical thinking and promote problem-solving.But divergent thinking hasn’t delivered the results that many hoped for, Fletcher said.&nbsp; A major issue is that its computational approach relies on data and information about the problems and successes of the past.“What it can’t do is help prepare people for new challenges that we know little about today. It can’t come up with truly original actions,” Fletcher said. “But the human brain’s narrative machinery can.”The narrative method of training for creativity uses many of the techniques that writers use to create stories. One is to develop new worlds in your mind. For example, employees at a company might be asked to think about their most unusual customer – then imagine a world in which all their customers were like that.&nbsp; How would that change their business?&nbsp; What would they have to do to survive?Another technique is perspective-shifting. An executive at a company might be asked to answer a problem by thinking like another member of their team.The point of using these techniques and others like them is not that the scenarios you dream up will actually happen, Fletcher said.“Creativity isn’t about guessing the future correctly. It’s about making yourself open to imagining radically different possibilities,” he said.“When you do that, you can respond more quickly and nimbly to the changes that do occur.”Fletcher noted that the narrative approach of training creativity through telling stories resembles how young children are creative – and research shows that young children are more imaginatively creative than adults.But the ability of children to perform creative tasks drops after four or five years of schooling, according to studies.&nbsp; That’s when children begin intensive logical, semantic and memory training.The narrative approach to creativity can help people unlock the creativity they may have stopped using as they progressed through school, Fletcher said.One advantage for organizations that train employees to be creative is that they no longer need to strive to hire “creative people,” he said.“Trying to hire creative people causes problems because the people that leaders identify as creative are almost always people just like themselves. So it promotes conformity instead of originality,” Fletcher said.<figure><img width="725" height="481" src="https://neurosciencenews.com/files/2022/03/creativity-training-neurosinces-public.jpg" alt="This shows a paintbrush applying bright pink paint to canvas" srcset="https://neurosciencenews.com/files/2022/03/creativity-training-neurosinces-public.jpg 1280w, https://neurosciencenews.com/files/2022/03/creativity-training-neurosinces-public-300x199.jpg 300w, https://neurosciencenews.com/files/2022/03/creativity-training-neurosinces-public-770x511.jpg 770w, https://neurosciencenews.com/files/2022/03/creativity-training-neurosinces-public-370x247.jpg 370w, https://neurosciencenews.com/files/2022/03/creativity-training-neurosinces-public-293x195.jpg 293w, https://neurosciencenews.com/files/2022/03/creativity-training-neurosinces-public-150x100.jpg 150w"><figcaption dir="auto">The current foundation of creativity training is the technique known as divergent thinking, which has been in use since the 1950s. Image is in the public domain</figcaption></figure>“It’s better to hire a diverse group of people and then train them to be creative. That creates a culture that recognizes that there are already creative people in your organization that you aren’t taking advantage of.”While this narrative method of creativity training has already been received positively, Fletcher and his colleagues have started a more formal evaluation. They are conducting randomized controlled trials of the creativity curriculum on more than 600 U.S. Army majors who are part of the Command and General Staff College.<div>See also</div>They are also continuing to work with new organizations, such as the Worthington Local School District in Ohio.“Teaching creativity is one of the most useful things you can do in the world, because it is just coming up with new solutions to solve problems,” he said.Fletcher said this new method of training creativity “could only have come from Ohio State’s Project Narrative.“Project Narrative is all about how stories work in the brain. It is the foundation that helped us put together this new way of thinking about and training for creativity,” he said.“And Project Narrative is itself proof of the power of creativity. It’s something that Ohio State created, something that would not have existed otherwise.”<h2>About this creativity and neuroscience research news</h2>Author: <a href="mailto:Grabmeier.1@osu.edu" rel="noreferrer noopener" dir="ltr">Jeff Grabmeier</a> Source: <a href="https://osu.edu/" rel="noreferrer noopener" dir="ltr">Ohio State University</a> Contact: Jeff Grabmeier – Ohio State University Image: The image is in the public domainOriginal Research: Open access. “<a href="https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.14763" rel="noreferrer noopener" dir="ltr">A new method for training creativity: narrative as an alternative to divergent thinking</a>” by Angus Fletcher et al. Annals of the New York Academy of SciencesAbstractA new method for training creativity: narrative as an alternative to divergent thinkingCreativity is a major source of innovation, growth, adaptability, and psychological resilience, making it a top priority of governments, global corporations, educational institutions, and other organizations that collectively invest hundreds of millions of dollars annually into training.The current foundation of creativity training is the technique known as divergent thinking; yet for decades, concerns have been raised about the adequacy of divergent thinking: it is incongruent with the creative processes of children and most adult creatives, and it has failed to yield expected downstream results in creative production. In this article, we present an alternative approach to creativity training, based in neural processes different from those involved in divergent thinking and drawing upon a previously unused resource for creativity research: narrative theory.We outline a narrative theory of creativity training; illustrate with examples of training and assessment from our ongoing work with the U.S. Department of Defense, Fortune 50 companies, and graduate and professional schools; and explain how the theory can help fill prominent lacunae and gaps in existing creativity research, including the creativity of children, the psychological mechanisms of scientific and technological innovation, and the failure of computer artificial intelligence to replicate human creativity.<div>Join our Newsletter</div><div dir="ltr"> I agree to have my personal information transferred to AWeber for Neuroscience Newsletter ( <a href="https://www.aweber.com/privacy.htm" dir="ltr">more information</a> )</div><div>Sign up to receive our recent neuroscience headlines and summaries sent to your email once a day, totally free.</div><div>We hate spam and only use your email to contact you about newsletters. You can cancel your subscription any time.</div><div>Tags</div>

A new method, based on narrative theory, helps spark creativity and innovation in people.

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Summary: A new method, based on narrative theory, helps spark creativity and innovation in people.

Source: Ohio State University

Researchers have developed a new method for training people to be creative, one that shows promise of succeeding far better than current ways of sparking innovation.

This new method, based on narrative theory, helps people be creative in the way children and artists are: By making up stories that imagine alternative worlds, shift perspective and generate unexpected actions.

The narrative method works by recognizing that we’re all creative, said Angus Fletcher, who developed the method and is a professor of English and a member of The Ohio State University’s Project Narrative.

“We as a society radically undervalue the creativity of kids and many others because we are obsessed with the idea that some people are more creative than others,” Fletcher said.

“But the reality is that we’re just not training creativity in the right way.”

Fletcher and Mike Benveniste, also of Project Narrative, discussed the narrative method of training creativity in a just-published article in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences .

The two researchers successfully used the narrative approach to train members of the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College. Fletcher wrote a publicly available training guide based on his methods that was tailored to officers and advanced enlisted personnel.

They have also worked with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the Ohio State College of Engineering and several Fortune 50 companies to teach creativity to their staffs and students.

The current foundation of creativity training is the technique known as divergent thinking, which has been in use since the 1950s.  It is a “computational approach” to creativity that treats the brain as a logic machine, Fletcher said.

It works through exercises designed to, among other things, expand working memory, foster analogical thinking and promote problem-solving.

But divergent thinking hasn’t delivered the results that many hoped for, Fletcher said.  A major issue is that its computational approach relies on data and information about the problems and successes of the past.

“What it can’t do is help prepare people for new challenges that we know little about today. It can’t come up with truly original actions,” Fletcher said. “But the human brain’s narrative machinery can.”

The narrative method of training for creativity uses many of the techniques that writers use to create stories. One is to develop new worlds in your mind. For example, employees at a company might be asked to think about their most unusual customer – then imagine a world in which all their customers were like that.  How would that change their business?  What would they have to do to survive?

Another technique is perspective-shifting. An executive at a company might be asked to answer a problem by thinking like another member of their team.

The point of using these techniques and others like them is not that the scenarios you dream up will actually happen, Fletcher said.

“Creativity isn’t about guessing the future correctly. It’s about making yourself open to imagining radically different possibilities,” he said.

“When you do that, you can respond more quickly and nimbly to the changes that do occur.”

Fletcher noted that the narrative approach of training creativity through telling stories resembles how young children are creative – and research shows that young children are more imaginatively creative than adults.

But the ability of children to perform creative tasks drops after four or five years of schooling, according to studies.  That’s when children begin intensive logical, semantic and memory training.

The narrative approach to creativity can help people unlock the creativity they may have stopped using as they progressed through school, Fletcher said.

One advantage for organizations that train employees to be creative is that they no longer need to strive to hire “creative people,” he said.

“Trying to hire creative people causes problems because the people that leaders identify as creative are almost always people just like themselves. So it promotes conformity instead of originality,” Fletcher said.

“It’s better to hire a diverse group of people and then train them to be creative. That creates a culture that recognizes that there are already creative people in your organization that you aren’t taking advantage of.”

While this narrative method of creativity training has already been received positively, Fletcher and his colleagues have started a more formal evaluation. They are conducting randomized controlled trials of the creativity curriculum on more than 600 U.S. Army majors who are part of the Command and General Staff College.

They are also continuing to work with new organizations, such as the Worthington Local School District in Ohio.

“Teaching creativity is one of the most useful things you can do in the world, because it is just coming up with new solutions to solve problems,” he said.

Fletcher said this new method of training creativity “could only have come from Ohio State’s Project Narrative.

“Project Narrative is all about how stories work in the brain. It is the foundation that helped us put together this new way of thinking about and training for creativity,” he said.

“And Project Narrative is itself proof of the power of creativity. It’s something that Ohio State created, something that would not have existed otherwise.”

About this creativity and neuroscience research news

Author: <a href="mailto:Grabmeier.1@osu.edu">Jeff Grabmeier </a> Source: <a href="https://osu.edu/">Ohio State University </a> Contact: Jeff Grabmeier – Ohio State University Image: The image is in the public domain

Original Research: Open access. “<a href="https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.14763">A new method for training creativity: narrative as an alternative to divergent thinking </a>” by Angus Fletcher et al. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

A new method for training creativity: narrative as an alternative to divergent thinking

Creativity is a major source of innovation, growth, adaptability, and psychological resilience, making it a top priority of governments, global corporations, educational institutions, and other organizations that collectively invest hundreds of millions of dollars annually into training.

The current foundation of creativity training is the technique known as divergent thinking; yet for decades, concerns have been raised about the adequacy of divergent thinking: it is incongruent with the creative processes of children and most adult creatives, and it has failed to yield expected downstream results in creative production. In this article, we present an alternative approach to creativity training, based in neural processes different from those involved in divergent thinking and drawing upon a previously unused resource for creativity research: narrative theory.

We outline a narrative theory of creativity training; illustrate with examples of training and assessment from our ongoing work with the U.S. Department of Defense, Fortune 50 companies, and graduate and professional schools; and explain how the theory can help fill prominent lacunae and gaps in existing creativity research, including the creativity of children, the psychological mechanisms of scientific and technological innovation, and the failure of computer artificial intelligence to replicate human creativity.

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Anyone Can Be Trained to Be Creative - Neuroscience News

A new method to spark creativity and innovation

Everyone is creative

The narrative method of training for creativity

Hire diverse, then train to be creative

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Anyone Can Be Trained to Be Creative - Neuroscience News

A new method to spark creativity and innovation

Everyone is creative

The narrative method of training for creativity

Hire diverse, then train to be creative

IDEAS ABOUT

MORE LIKE THIS

3 Exercises to Boost Your Team’s Creativity

To Be More Creative, Cheer Up

Secrets of the Creative Brain

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career