Creativity and Intelligence

Creativity and Intelligence
Type of psychology: Intelligence and intelligence testing
Field of study: General issues in intelligence
Creativity and intelligence are two aspects of cognitive performance in humans. Creativity
refers to having inventive, productive, and imaginative qualities; intelligence
refers to having mental acuteness, the ability to understand, and the ability to act effectively
to solve problems within one’s environment. The areas of creativity and intelligence
have provided insight into what it means to be gifted and talented.
Key concepts

• analogy
• cognitive skills
• creativity
• giftedness
• intelligence
• problem solving
• problem solving by analogy

Creativity and intelligence are two areas of cognitive functioning and performance
which have been examined by researchers, educators, and others.
Creativity can be defined as a person’s cognitive abilities in areas such as fluency,
flexibility, originality, elaboration, visualization, metaphorical thinking,
problem definition, and evaluation. Intelligence is defined as the ability
to perform various mental tasks which include reasoning, knowledge, comprehension,
memory, applying concepts, and manipulating figures. The
study of creativity and intelligence has developed based on studies in cognitive,
developmental, and educational psychology.

Given that psychology as a discipline may be defined as the systematic
study of the mind and behavior, when one studies creativity and intelligence,
one learns how to improve performance and lead those persons
who are creative, gifted, and talented to new heights. Specifically, when one
studies creativity, one gains information about students’ abilities in imagination,
discovery, and the ability to invent. When one studies intelligence, one
gains information about students’ abilities in logic, memory, and organization.
Creativity and intelligence have played a significant role in the history of
psychology and an even greater role in the history of humankind. Progress
in education is evident in at least three occurrences. First, interest in measuring
individual differences has led to the development of tests to quantify
creative and intellectual abilities. Second, attention to persons who have
been identified as creative, gifted, talented, or highly intelligent has led to
the development of special programs, learning experiences, and scholarships
for these students. Third, the needs of these students have led to research on the students themselves. The results of numerous empirical studies
have been published to aid parents, educators, and the gifted or creative
individual in understanding the needs of those with special abilities.
Certain issues related to creativity and intelligence have evolved from discrepancies
that have been found in obtaining relationships between creativity
and intelligence. It is a mistake to lump creative and intelligent people together:
Creative ability is not synonymous with intellectual ability. Many
students who are very high in intelligence, as measured by a test, are not
high in other intellectual functions, such as creativity. Many students who
are high in creativity are not also high in intelligence.