Creativity is what adds colour to life. It is the process that brings forth a new product. Playing an indispensable part in all areas of life, like, thought, work, play, or social interactions. — Creativity acts as an imperative character in changing old arrangements into new ones.
Creative intelligence is the ability to create new products, ideas, or innovative solutions to problems. Therefore, a person with creative intelligence would be highly innovative and imaginative.
The works of great painters get us curious about how no two are alike. How does the artist create something unique each time? Or are some books more interesting than others? The answer lies in the creative person’s creative genius in shaping these masterpieces. This creativity is the result of the creative intelligence that the person possesses.
This article lets us understand the characteristics of this trait and a few examples of it exhibited. In a nutshell, let us look at what creative intelligence is.
Creative Intelligence- Characteristics that make it unique
Creative intelligence is one of the 12 types of intelligence that a human mind can possess. Being distinct from all others like spatial, interpersonal, logical-mathematical intelligence, creative intelligence combines the intellect with the imagination to create a unique product or idea.
Just like we talked about logical-mathematical intelligence characteristics in our previous post, creative intelligence constitutes the following characteristics that make it stand out.
- High sensitivity and a sense of intuition: creativity develops from the mind of intuition and sensitivity. Creativity is devoid of the logical, rational, reasoning, and expected aspects. Instead, it is the ability to generate unique ideas without conscious thought. Intuition sets the background for new ideas to take shape and what makes it unique is the nature of spontaneity it has.
- Inspiration: creativity arises when one follows intuitions. The person has creative ideas based on the instincts that one has, thereby deriving inspiration from it. Inspiration makes people more creative and awakens new possibilities. It can also transform a previous thought process leading to its improvisation. Inspiration can be activated through various sources around us.
- Dreams and imaginations: the person enters the creative process through dreams and imagination. The vision serves as new ideas for creativity. When one imagines, there is a creation in mind about things that do not exist. Creativity results by using this imagination to create something. When a person dreams or imagines, there may be unrealistic images that come into existence. Utilising this to create new ideas will always make them different than something that already exists.
- Meaningful learning: the person’s creative process results are assigned meaning. The creative outcome is of great significance to the individual. It is about how meaningful the creation or the new idea is to the creator. A painting, a story, or a piece of music can be interpreted in many ways by various people. It holds a very meaningful learning for the person whose imagination and creativity has birthed it.
- Innovation: the creative outcomes are often very innovative and different from anything existing. Most of the unique ideas and inventions in this world can be attributed to the innovative ideas of people with high creative intelligence. The most ingenious start up ideas too stem from high levels of creativity and fresh ideas. A few years ago, online education was unheard of. But advancements in science and innovations have made this achievable.
Creative intelligence examples
While practical intelligence is often associated with people who can handle situations well with their valuable life experiences, creative intelligence is associated with people who have the skill of storytelling art and are capable of innovative and new ideas.
Let us go through instances where there is a display of creative intelligence.
1. Painting
Skills like painting and expressing oneself through a medium of colors and paintings involve creative intelligence. Famous artists from history like Picasso possessed a creative intellect and were one of the visual-spatial learners. So it will not be wrong to say that painting can blend science and creativity, as it involves background research, hypothesis, experiments, and an analysis of the images.
2. Story Writing
Story writing involves creativity, planning, and plotting of the storyline. It also demands a very vivid imagination to turn out something innovative. Writing in turn also enhances the creativity in children by fuelling their imagination. Writers like Ruskin Bond create such vivid imagery through simple words. The use of language is such that one can imagine the scenes. This power of expression may be attributed to control over language and creative intelligence.
Many authors see stories in the most mundane of life situations. Giving something so ordinary a new look is creativity at work.
3. Music
Music requires creativity, and even a simple tune can stir your sense of melody. There have been many brilliant musicians who had dyslexia but created magical music. So we can say that music is a part of creative intelligence. The sounds in nature are compared to music. The present social media trends use the sounds of nature extensively, thereby making it nothing less than a melody. For a musician, there is music everywhere. Creative minds lend beauty and meaning to the ordinary, making them new and one of a kind.
4. Scientists
Creative intelligence falls under the purview of the abstract often; the basis of almost all innovations can be attributed to creative intelligence. It was a creative mind that first questioned why humans could not fly, and over the ages, the airplane came into being. Elon Musk is attributed with creative intelligence. The reason he has been the pioneer of so many innovative concepts.
5. Poets
Much as we agree that poetry needs a good knowledge of language and fluency, the poet’s thoughts are fuelled by his imagination or creative expressions of what might seem mundane to others. Poetry also involves the depiction of the ordinary in new words and a new light, displaying the use of creative intelligence. Great poets have beautified simple things into elements of intrigue through their words. Use of words to depict this is a result of creative intelligence.
6. Advertisers
Marketing and sales depend on advertisements that get creative by the day. Therefore, companies vie to have the most captivating and innovative advertising ideas. Advertisements attract the customers around and play an important role in the sales part. Creative intelligence and their marketing knowledge are what make them achievers in this field.
7. Game designers
Online games have taken the world by storm. The most popular games are the ones that involve difficult challenges and milestones that give a variety differing from the other games. These online games are the perfect combination of science and imagination, a characteristic of creative intelligence. The uniqueness keeps the users captivated for long periods of time. Gamers seek new challenges often, and it is the uncommon ideas that make the game more popular.
8. Moviemakers
The aesthetic scenes in movies, the confluence of the settings, and the story plots are a product of the creative mind. Scenes from daily life are turned into works of art. It is the movie that deviates from the run-of-the-mill plots that are more popular and engage the audience. The movie makers need a high level of creativity to make the movie not only aesthetically pleasing but also meaningful and entertaining to the audience. A Task that is possible only with a lot of experience and high creative intelligence.
Why creative intelligence can be meaningful?
Bearing a creative intelligence is the way to master new skills. With this intelligence, one can arrive at unique ideas and solutions. Finding new alternatives to older methods is what innovation is about. Moreover, creativity is vital to have a healthy competitive spirit, without which there would be stagnation in every field.
One can use previous knowledge and new ideas to arrive at solutions. Creative intelligence equips us with a competitive skill set, which is the need of the hour. Moreover, it helps us think differently and develop better ways of doing things. Thereby will result in a fundamental shift in our views and methods of dealing with the world.
Creative intelligence is of great use in every field of life. But, more so, for people involved in the creative fields like writers, poets, artists, storytellers, scientists, and designers, ideas define success.
Dyslexia and creative intelligence
In 1877, the reading and spelling difficulties characteristic of dyslexia was first identified by Adolph Kussmaul[1], a German Professor of Medicine. Termed ‘word blindness,’ such difficulties were believed (incorrectly) to stem from some form of ocular deficit. ‘Dyslexia’ was coined by Kussmaul’s contemporary, Rudolph Berlin, an ophthalmologist and academic.
It is a widespread opinion that people with developmental dyslexia exhibit great creativity. Examples of this were Pablo Picasso, Agatha Christie, and Walt Disney. There are many examples of people who have dyslexia and are very creative. From singers, to musicians, to writers and even CEOs – people from all fields have shown remarkable success despite having learning challenges. However, no strong evidence supports the theory that dyslexic people are highly creative or possess high creative intelligence.
A study[2] was conducted to verify the creativity in children with developmental dyslexia. The Raven Colored Progressive Matrices Test and the Child Figural Creativity Test were applied. High correlations were found between intelligence and creativity.
Dyslexic individuals showed more evidence of creativity in their tasks in another study[3]. Yet it was not possible to prove beyond doubt that these were associated with a solid creative intelligence.
To Conclude
The gift of creative intelligence, when used in our workplaces and the creative arena, will open up new horizons. Once we know where our strength lies, the possibilities are endless. While few of us may be good at mathematics or science, creativity is also a strength.
Being an artist, musician, author, or game designer can pave the way to realizing your dreams. With changing times, the emphasis on developing alternate skills has gained paramount importance. It has been suggested that creativity is a product of the intelligent mind. Therefore, we must explore and seek this trait within ourselves.
References:
- Dyslexia debated, then and now: a historical perspective on the dyslexia debate. (2020b, August). Philip Kirby. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2020.1747418
- Creativity and Intelligence in Children With and Without Developmental Dyslexia. (2015, January). Rauni Jandé Roama Alves. https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-43272459201410
- An eye for the unusual: creative thinking in dyslexics. (1999, March). John Everatt, Beverley Steffert, Ian Smythe. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0909(199903)
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,