Psychology: Concept of creativity and its stages

        (ITP-24) Concept of creativity and its stages

 

Abstract:

This article explores the concept of creativity and its stages. Creativity is the ability to generate novel and valuable ideas, products, or solutions. The stages include preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. In the preparation phase, individuals gather knowledge and acquire skills. The incubation stage involves subconscious processing and reflection. Illumination is the sudden insight or "Eureka" moment, while verification involves refining and evaluating the creative idea. The creative process is not strictly linear, and factors like individual traits and environmental influences play a role. Understanding creativity's stages helps foster creativity in individuals and organizations, driving innovation and personal growth.

What is Creativity?

•         Creativity represents a Special Kind of Thinking Process. Creativity is generally known as originality in ideas. Every one of us ought to process creative abilities. But every one of us is a unique creation, Thereby the degree of possession of creative ability is not uniform.

•         Some of us are found to possess high creative talents and these are the people who move the world ahead by their discoveries and inventions in the field of art, literature, science, business, teaching and other fields of human accomplishments. They are responsible for coming up with new ideas and bringing about social and cultural changes.

Nature and characteristics of creativity

The nature and characteristics of creativity are as follows:-

• Creativity is universal. Every one of us possesses the creative capacity to some degree.
• Creative abilities are natural endowments, they are capable of being nourished and nurtured by training or education.
• Through creative expression, something new or novel idea is produced. But the novelty or newness doesn’t mean to produce totally new idea it may be something that is already present but reshaped or rearrangement of these ideas is also called creativity.
• Creative expression is the source of joy and satisfaction for the creator.
• Ego involvement in creative person like creator can say it’s my creation, I have solved this problem
• Creative thinking cannot be closed thinking. It must have complete freedom for the multiplicity of responses, choices and line of action.
• The field of creative expression is very wide. It covers all the aspects of human accomplishments like scientific inventions and discoveries, compositions of poems, Drama, dance, music etc. Our day to day life activities also needs creativity. Therefore, in a nutshell, life as a whole presents enormous opportunities for creative expression.

Stages of Creativity Process

Preparation

The first stage is the idea of ‘preparation’ the idea that is immersing yourself in the domain. If someone is good at music then he will absorb a lot of music that is inspiring him to create a new piece of music. Likewise, some who is good at dance, arts, Research will look after to create something new in their interested and related field. In this stage, students try to absorb as much information as possible because this information will go into their sub consciousness where it is very important for the second stage.

Incubation

The second stage is called the ‘incubation’ stage. In incubation, all the information he has gathered in the first stage preparation stage really goes back. It starts to churn in the back of his mind, in the sub-consciousness. This is an extremely important stage because something can take days, or week or months or sometimes even years. That idea that he will think about writing about a book or piece of music, and he is writing about it and he just leave it to the side for a while and then come back to it. Now the interesting thing about the incubation stages is that to a certain extent it is not really under his control how long that stage will take. It is something he cannot really rush because what it leads to is the third stage.

Illumination

This is the third stage. This stage essentially describes the classic “eureka!” or “aha” moment of insight. However, the fact that illumination has an entire stage devoted to it shows that it’s essentially not just a quick moment of insight and helps us understand that it’s something we can—and should—work towards achieving. The third stage is what most people think is a classic characteristic of a creative person, but creativity is a process which even the most seemingly unimaginative people can learn to manage and nurture.

Verification/implementation

At this fourth stage, you build on the “aha” solution. You evaluate, analyze and build on your idea. You then polish it to make sure that it’s both useful and novel. At this stage, you would also often choose to prototype and test your idea in order to find out if it meets the users’ needs which you defined at the preparation stage—and, if so, polish it as needed.

Conclusion

Creativity is a multifaceted process that involves various stages and factors. By understanding and harnessing creativity, individuals and organizations can unlock their innovative potential, leading to new solutions, products, and advancements. Nurturing creativity through education, supportive environments, and personal development strategies is crucial in fostering a creative society and addressing the challenges of an ever-changing world.