Unit - 2

Conversational & Social Skills

Q1 Define Creativity in your own words.

A1) 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.

Q2) Bring out the characteristic of a creative person.

A2) 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. 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.

Q3) What you mean by ability?

A3) 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.

Q4) What is a claim?

A4) 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.

Q5) What is fact?

A5) 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.

Q6) Write a short note on. Credibility Analysis

A6) 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.

Q7) What do you mean by Identifying Valid Reasons?

A7) The essential part of the argument that one must identify are the reasons.  These are claims that support the conclusion---as their name suggests, they give you reason to believe it.  Without them, there is no argument---just a claim.  Thus, it is a mistake to respond to a request for your argument by saying, "Bush will win in 2004!"  This may be your conclusion, but without reasons, it is no argument.

As with conclusions, there are ways to identify reasons.  One fast-and-loose method is to take everything that isn't a conclusion in the argument to be a reason.  However, as we will see in the next section, this will give you false positives, that is, claims that are considered reasons without actually being reasons, since arguments often contain claims that serve other purposes (e.g., humor, small talk, rhetorical flourish, etc.).  The most effective method is to look for “reason markers".  These terms include the following: 'because', 'since', 'for', 'in light of', 'reason', 'assume', 'according to', 'considering', 'by', 'if', 'in fact', etc. As before, you need to take care when evaluating appearances of these terms---not all appearances mark reasons.

Q8) Discuss Knowing the Hidden Motives.

A8) 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.

Q9) What are Creative Methods?

A9) 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.

Q10) Explain Creative Methods.

A10) 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.