Unit - 5
Creativity and Critical Thinking
Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.
Creativity has been associated with a wide range of behavioral and mental characteristics, including associations between semantically remote ideas and contexts, application of multiple perspectives, curiosity, flexibility in thought and action, rapid generation of multiple, qualitatively different solutions and answers to problems and questions, tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, and unusual uses of familiar objects.
Creativity has been associated with a wide range of behavioral and mental characteristics, including associations between semantically remote ideas and contexts, application of multiple perspectives, curiosity, flexibility in thought and action, rapid generation of multiple, qualitatively different solutions and answers to problems and questions, tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, and unusual uses of familiar objects.
Creative people themselves won’t know how creative they are. It is for the others to discover and utilize. Onlookers can identify a creative person from the way in which these people conduct their lives.
The people who exhibit creative behavior have a unique set of qualities, some of which are listed below –
Fluency:
The ability to keep coming up with creative ideas one after the other. This is developed by organizing creative problem-solving sessions during which the participants will be encouraged to provide different ways to use day to day objects like tooth brush, eraser, pens, etc. Once this is over, the same approach can be used with work related themes.
Originality:
The ability to think about unique and original ideas or improvements in the existing ideas. Originality can be learned following a first come, first serve basis of answering to questions.
For example, as soon as the question “How to use potatoes in cooking?” is asked, the facilitator should start taking questions immediately and keep telling that only 6 more unique answers will be accepted.
Curiosity
Their innate thirst for knowledge makes them a curious bunch and they are constantly on a quest of truth-seeking and information gathering. Their fact-finding spans across many subject matters as their interests are unlimited.
If you ever get talking to a creative person, you’ll find there isn’t a subject that they are not conversant in. These people truly are conversational chameleons!
Creative persons are compelled to act on what they are curious about. They prefer to seek out and learn new things, and they enjoy the thrill of processing the emotions of anxiety, fear and excitement with great regularity. With their natural openness to novel experiences, curiosity creates as sense of wonder and imagination which has been linked with the development of true happiness. Because they are endlessly curious and remain open to new experiences, it increases their probability of doing something innovative and it helps them to more naturally discover the deeper meaning and relevance of their lives.
Critical thinking:
Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe. It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking. A creative person with critical thinking skills is able to do the following:
● understand the logical connections between ideas
● identify, construct and evaluate arguments
● detect inconsistencies and common mistakes in reasoning
● solve problems systematically
● identify the relevance and importance of ideas
● reflect on the justification of one's own beliefs and values
Critical thinking is not a matter of accumulating information. A person with a good memory and who knows a lot of facts is not necessarily good at critical thinking. A critical thinker is able to deduce consequences from what he knows, and he knows how to make use of information to solve problems, and to seek relevant sources of information to inform himself.
An ability is a power or capacity to do or act physically, mentally, legally, morally, financially, etc. competence in an activity or occupation because of one's skill, training, or other qualification: the ability to sing well. abilities, talents; special skills or aptitudes: Composing music is beyond his abilities.
It also means physical or mental power to do or accomplish something. An ability may be used of an inborn power to do something especially well. Many athletes have the ability to run fast. talent is used for an unusual ability to create things.
Fact
Fact: Something actually done or something said in a meaningful way.
Fact is something that could be verifiable in time and space. Example: The wall was painted blue in 2016. The fact would certainly be verifiable if the school office files contained a similar shade of blue paint chip, attached to a dated 2016 receipt for blue paint and a painting contractor’s 2016 dated invoice marked “Paid in Full.”
Fact is an objective reflection of reality. A fact exists independent of our sensory experience. Example: “If a classroom’s walls are blue, then someone must have painted them that color.
Claim.
A claim can be a judgment. Example: Undocumented immigrants who maintain clean criminal records should be not be deported from our country. Explanation: A claim can weigh evidence and reach a conclusion based upon that evidence.
A claim can express a point of view. Example: The election of that candidate would be horrible for the country. Explanation: A point of view expresses an arguable position and frequently considers contrasting points of views by stating counterarguments and refutations.
A claim can be supported by research, expert sources, evidence, reasoning, testimony, and academic reasoning. Example: The new research on cancer cures is promising. Explanation: Specific research and quotations from medical authorities may offer convincing evidence.
Credibility comprises the objective and subjective components of the believability of a source or message. Credibility has two key components: trustworthiness and expertise, which both have objective and subjective components. Trustworthiness is based more on subjective factors, but can include objective measurements such as established reliability. Expertise can be similarly subjectively perceived, but also includes relatively objective characteristics of the source or message (e.g., credentials, certification or information quality). Secondary components of credibility include source dynamism (charisma) and physical attractiveness.
Credibility online has become an important topic since the mid-1990s. This is because the web has increasingly become an information resource.
A claim is a statement purporting/proposing the status of disposition of something (or some act).
Claims include statements of real property ownership or usage rights (like a land or mineral extraction claim or claim of ownership), and a demand for compensation for cause (e.g., compensation claim due to injury or other disability).
The probate court settled the matter of her widower’s land-rights claim.
I filed a claim for unemployment insurance.
Another sense of a claim is a proven or unproven assertion.
He claimed to have loved her for decades before he actually proposed marriage.
Claims or assertions if proven and enforced become facts. Opinions are similar to unproven facts; they represent personal viewpoints and sometimes represent wishful thinking. But opinions are never really facts (except insofar as they are real thoughts of real people).
A fact is something that is, that can be proven to exist. It is objective. The fact is a fact, regardless of how we feel about it.
A fact is objective. It is a truth or reality that is or reality that is measurable in concrete terms for many persons. It is provable and evident.
Unconscious bias refers to the hidden beliefs that impact our perceptions of others. “Unconscious bias” is also a hot topic, appearing on the human capital agendas of many organizations today.
Unconscious biases are the implicit positive or negative preferences for things, individuals, or groups shaped through our individual experiences. These snap judgments can have huge implications for the way we work. Unconscious bias makes us believe we are making decisions about an individual’s capabilities, professionalism, or ability to contribute based on rational details when, in reality, these are based on our personal preferences.
Knowing the Hidden Motives
Detecting hidden bias involves checking that treatment effects appear where they should, and not elsewhere. For instance, treated and control groups are often compared with respect to outcomes the treatment should not affect.
Hidden Bias Tests measure unconscious, or automatic, biases. Your willingness to examine your own possible biases is an important step in understanding the roots of stereotypes and prejudice in our society.
Creativity techniques are methods that encourage creative actions, whether in the arts or sciences. They focus on a variety of aspects of creativity, including techniques for idea generation and divergent thinking, methods of re-framing problems, changes in the affective environment and so on. They can be used as part of problem solving, artistic expression, or therapy.
Some techniques require groups of two or more people while other techniques can be accomplished alone. These methods include word games, written exercises and different types of improvisation, or algorithms for approaching problems. Aleatory techniques exploiting randomness are also common.
What are Creative Methods?
In order to access or communicate information and knowledge not easily attainable through traditional methods, creative methods use:
● lateral & metaphorical thinking
● arts-based, aesthetic, or "maker” approaches
● storytelling/affective narratives (visual, verbal, or other)
The creative or artistic dimensions may be used during data collection, analysis, interpretation, and/or dissemination.
References:
1. Technical Communication, (Second Ed.); O.U.P., Meenakshi Raman & S. Sharma New Delhi, 2011
2. Personality Development, Harold R. Wallace et. al, Cengage Learning India Pvt. Ltd; New Delhi 2006
3. Personality Development & Soft Skills, Barun K. Mitra, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2012.
4. Practical Communication by L.U.B. Pandey; A.I.T.B.S. Publications India Ltd.; Krishan Nagar, 2013, Delhi.
5. Developing Communication Skills: by Krishna Mohan, Meera Banerji; McMillan India Ltd, Delhi,1990.
