Smart Or Creative: Who Has An Easier Life? - Research, Self-development

2023 Author: Oswald Adamson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 12:13

Can you be smart but not creative? Or is creativity a consequence of high intelligence? Scientists have been researching intelligence and creativity separately from each other, and they have been testing intelligence for over a hundred years, and creativity for about sixty

In the vocabulary of terms of professional researchers there is the concept of "intelligence" - this is the ability to grasp, grasp the meaning of things and understand how to act, and not just book knowledge, narrow academic skill or quick wit in solving a test.

WHO IS SMARTER?

The English scientist R. Lynn conducted a study in which he assessed the intelligence not of individual people, but of entire nations: in his works, IQ indicators are given for 192 countries. It turned out that the residents of Northeast Asia - China, Japan, and Korea have the highest IQ scores (the highest value - 108 points - is demonstrated by residents of Hong Kong). The inhabitants of Tropical Africa have the lowest IQ. Their intelligence is only 67 points. Europeans (including residents of Russia) have an average intelligence (about 99 points). The author revealed a paradox: Asians have the highest rates in comparison with Europeans, but they win much fewer prestigious prizes, for example, Nobel Prizes, for creative achievements. At the same time, Africans with the lowest intelligence have the lowest percentage of laureates of various awards. R. Lynn comes to the conclusion that, despite a higher IQ, Northeast Asians are less creative than Europeans.

Tasks in intelligence tests, as a rule, have nothing to do with the problems that a person has to solve in life. A typical example is to establish logical patterns in a sequence of geometric shapes, numbers, words. After the test is passed, the number of correct answers is counted. Then this number is translated into IQ points, while the average is an intelligence of 100 points.

Dutch artist Bert Simons makes realistic sculptures out of paper. In the final version, the sculptures are three-dimensional and quite similar to the real ones

Creativity is the ability to generate new ideas, original and meaningful. Creativity is associated with the ability to think in different directions. The essence of creativity tests is to come up with as many ideas as possible to solve a particular problem. For example, a person is asked to dream up how to use, say, a brick. Answers are assessed according to several criteria. The test of fluency is simply the amount of answers given. A person is considered creative if he offers as many different ideas as possible. The next criterion is originality. This is a standard or non-standard answer. If almost all people give the answer (for example, use a brick at a construction site), then such an answer is considered unoriginal. If only a few or even one person offers a certain answer (for example,a brick can be tied to a rope - and there will be an anchor for an inflatable boat), then it gets high points for originality.

Sometimes, to assess creative abilities, psychologists suggest composing a poem according to certain rules or composing a collage, and the works are evaluated by artists or poets.

We see ourselves exploring intelligence and creativity on completely different principles. When solving an intellectual problem, the subject must come to the only correct answer. When solving a creative one, it is necessary to come up with ideas, find many original solutions. In addition, creative tasks are almost the same as those that a person faces in life, which cannot be said about tasks in intelligence tests.

The French city park Beauvais (Mevon) is annually decorated with figures of fairy tale heroes made of citrus fruits for the lemon festival

It remains to understand how intellectual and creative achievements are related to each other. Some scientists believe that intelligence and creativity are independent abilities: one does not necessarily imply the other.

For example, in one of the studies it was found that children with high intelligence and pronounced creative inclinations are confident in their capabilities, know how to curb emotions, feelings, desires, easily focus and are curious. Schoolchildren with low intelligence and practically no craving for creativity are well-arranged in life and are satisfied with it. Their low intelligence is compensated by sociability or, conversely, some passivity.

But children with intelligence below average, but gifted, have a harder time. They had low self-esteem, a feeling of constant conflict between their own idea of the world and school requirements, lack of faith in themselves, fear of evaluation from others. Smart children with low creative abilities direct their energy to study, while failures are perceived as a catastrophe, they are afraid to express their opinion, communicate.

We see that basically the last two groups of children with different levels of intellectual and creative development experience difficulties in life. Perhaps high intelligence with high creativity will be a mechanism that will not allow a person to remain helpless. Low intelligence with low creativity will not create problems for its owner at all.

South African artist Stephen Gregory uses human bones in his work, decorating them with bronze and semi-precious stones

Other scientists adhere to the threshold theory, according to which, up to a certain IQ value (115 - 120 points), intelligence and creativity are closely related - the more intelligence, the more creativity. At higher values of intelligence (above 120 points), these two abilities become independent of each other. In other words, only the superintelligent can either show or not show creativity, while for ordinary people, intelligence is a necessary condition for creativity.

But rather, scientists share the third point of view and argue that intelligence and creativity are closely related abilities: high intelligence implies high creativity, and low intelligence implies low.

At the beginning of the 20th century, L. Termen and K. Cox, based on biographical data, estimated the intelligence of 282 great people of the past - Napoleon, Luther, Beethoven, Rembrandt, Newton. It turned out that their IQ scores are extremely high. The lowest was the intelligence of J. Washington, which was 130 points. The highest is the intelligence of I. Goethe, equal to approximately 200 points.

A sculpture made of metal hangers and a portrait of Brigitte Bordeaux from stamps. Exhibition "ICONOGRAPHY" in Paris from the British sculptor David Mach

In the early 1950s. E. Ro has interviewed and tested 64 prominent American scientists in the fields of physics, biology, psychology and anthropology. All scientists were distinguished by extremely high intelligence: IQ 121-194 points. It can be concluded that very talented people turn out to be very smart.

In general, the separation of intelligence and creativity is conditional. It is difficult, for example, to imagine that some great scientist with high intelligence did not discover anything new in his field of science.