Why are some people more creative than others?

When you google “how works creativity”, the first explanation given is “creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways”. Are we all able to see the world differently? How many people are concerned? Does it come from an extraordinary ability, a gift? This article highlights the process of creating and expose the reasons why certain people have more creative ideas than others.

How does creativity work, concretely?

Scientists have been working hard on studying what happens in our brains when we’re being creative. What they recently found using artificial intelligence is fascinating. Apparently, the brain is composed of three different networks:

• Attentional Control = when we need to concentrate on complicated problems, read or listen to a talk.
• Imagination = when we imagine future scenarios, remember things or construct mental images.
• Attentional Flexibility = when we monitor what’s going on around us, inside our brains, and switch between Imagination and Attentional Control. (Source)

Theoretically, creativity comes up when these three networks work together. Usually, creative people have smaller connections between their two brain hemispheres (“corpus callosum”), which give ideas time to develop. Scientists also found that creativity happens when connecting a creative mind to more gray matter and high levels of serotonin.

Why some people could be more creative than others

As a result, can we state that some individuals have a more active brain and therefore are more creative? According to further surveys, creativity seems to be a mixture of genetics, experience, and psychology. In other terms, creativity is accessible to everyone, and everyone is capable of being creative and come up with ideas.

Creativity happens along with daily life events. If you watch a movie, visit a museum, watch a Ted Talk or just let your mind go, these factors will give a boost to your creative expression and analytical capacity. Children are far more creative than adults given their young age and their non-restriction from our self-imposed social rules and constraints. They ask many questions because they want to understand everything and they develop dreams.

But children aren’t the only creative ones. When we write new ideas, learn and try new things, we increase our creativity. Parallelly, studies highlighted the strong connection between creativity and physical exercise, outdoors or a night of good sleep. At work, brainstorming sessions, in addition to being fun and offering unlimited popcorn, help teams being more creative and building healthy teamwork.

Article initially published on my LinkedIn profile