 Creativity is a mode of thought that is expressed through distinctive mental processes. Basically, it proceeds by making unexpected associations between existing concepts and facts, giving rise to new ideas, inventions and discoveries that are at once original and effective. The notion that creativity is a ‘mode of thought’ that derives from a specific mental and behavioral attitude dates back to the early 20th century. The first important studies on the phenomenon were conducted in the 1920s.
It’s not easy defining creativity concisely without being reductive. The ability to produce creative thought, like the ability to communicate or to learn, is a meta-skill, which is to say a ‘transverse’ ability that can be applied to different fields, from art and science to business and technology. The same creativity that drives individuals to cultivate certain skills has enabled humankind as a whole to progress toward increasing complexity through the conquest of knowledge and the production of culture.
The Italian verb creare, which is the same as its Latin forebear, first appears either in 1276 (De Mauro) or 1294 (Cortelazzo Zolli). The Latin verbs creare and crescere share the root KAR, which is found in the Sanskrit KAR-OTI (create, make) and KAR-TR (creator, he who makes) as well as in the Greek KRAINO (I create, I produce, I complete), KRANTOR and KREION (dominator; he who makes, creates) and KRONOS (the Creator, father of Jupiter ). The meaning can also signify ‘to create from nothing’, ‘to generate’, ‘to form’, ‘to institute’, ‘to raise’, ‘to educate’, ‘to teach’. The Italian noun creatività is recorded for the first time in 1951 (in English, 1875, ed.), while the adjective creativo dates back to 1406 (in English, 1678, ed.). The same word appears as a noun starting around 1970 in the advertising industry to refer to those who produce concepts and texts, and has since expanded to define a number of professions.
While the proper meaning of creativity denotes both originality and effectiveness, common usage tends to insinuate that ‘creative’ thinking or behavior is that which is different, odd, bizarre or transgressive, over-emphasizing the component of originality and undervaluing, even completely ignoring the fact that creative thinking and behavior, in order to be defined as such, must also effective and appropriate. Recently, the adjective creative has been used sarcastically to disparage ideas that are overly elaborate or outright preposterous – e.g. creative financing.
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Dictionary definitions of creativity.
Devoto-Oli - The ability to produce reason or fantasy; creative talent.
Zingarelli - Creative ability, capacity for invention: the creativity of children / (psych.) The ability to produce new ideas, inventions, works of art, etc. / (ling.) The ability of a speaker to understand and emit utterances never heard before.
| | The dictionary confirms that creativity is an ability: not just an innate gift but something that must be cultivated, developed and made to grow by exploiting all the opportunities (and chance occurrences) provided by a suitable environment. In terms of creative development, DNA and environment interpenetrate continually, compensating or accentuating their reciprocal influence in both the positive and negative sense.
The dictionary also specifies that creativity is productive ability: not an end in itself, but oriented toward a goal that goes beyond mere self-gratification. This doesn’t mean that creativity can’t also be fun. Richard Feynman, father of nanotechnology and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize for Physics, had an extraordinary sense of humor, played the bongos and generally had a jolly time. Indeed, a sense of humor is one of few typical and recurrent traits of the creative personality.
As for reason and fantasy, the dictionary suggests that creativity arises from the integration of logical and analogical thought. The first proceeds by linear sequence: cause and effect, premise and consequence. It essentially involves the left hemisphere of the brain, home of the language function. The second type of thinking proceeds not in a linear way, but through similarity (i.e. analogy) and difference, symmetries and asymmetries. It involves instead the right hemisphere, which hosts among other functions that of vision.
Specifying that creativity means the ability to produce new ideas, the dictionary confirms that the creative act precedes the act of innovation (to transform through the introduction of new systems or methods – De Mauro). In other words, the mental phenomenon of creativity always comes before the economic, social and cultural phenomenon of innovation, generating ideas which, once communicated and shared among a given social group, develop into innovation.
By explaining that creative ability produces new ideas, inventions and works of art, the dictionary underscores the fact that creativity can be applied to the arts, the sciences or technology; to both what we produce that is new and to the new ways we produce it, and thus to both products and the processes of production.
In a word, creativity is not restricted to a single, privileged domain of human activity.
In defining the ability of a speaker to understand and emit utterances never heard before as creative, the dictionary points out that each of us performs a great number of extraordinarily complex creative acts every day, without even realizing it.
Creative thinking consists in asking oneself questions and/or in addressing problems or questions from a base of solid knowledge but with the application of new perspectives, with the aim of finding innovative and effective solutions, regardless of the field. This way of thinking finds expression in a process that is not always linear, and that consists in the gathering and selecting of necessary information from among all that is available, then reconfiguring it through connections that generate new conclusions.
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