Nature or nurture? Whatever causes creativity, keep it coming

Though a lot of people who never thought much about it before have begun realizing that creativity is essential to every kind of human success – including the money part that Americans value so much – nobody has a real grasp yet on where creativity comes from.

All over the nation, government leaders, business people and school adminstrators have been moved by their desire to develop a smarter, more capable work force and boost economies. They’ve gotten behind efforts to promote imaginative thinking, seek out and fund innovators and involve artists in teaching and neighborhood redevelopment projects.

They see a use for creativity the way early humans saw a use for fire, without understanding what it is. 

But that’s not their fault, because not even scientists are sure yet. Some, such as V.S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California-San Diego, have postulated that creativity began 20,000-30,000 years ago when neurological structures in the brain finally developed enough to make physical contact with each other, suddenly allowing humans to, in effect, cross-reference their thoughts. Humans could then compare one experience or perception to another and discover likenesses or patterns that helped them understand what they saw more deeply. Using real experiences as a starting point, they could imagine experiences that weren’t real. They could recognize that one thing – an object or image – might represent another quite different thing – an idea. 

 Source credit: www.mindpowerzone.com/article1.htm

They were no longer limited to the literal – they understood metaphor. And so, quite abruptly by evolutionary standards, humans developed religion and art.

But postulating that creativity was the result of brain development is not the same as knowing exactly what the development was and how it works. The scientific theories seem contradictory, to say the least, with some camps scoffing at common lore such as the idea that creative people are right-brained, while others find evidence that seems to support it.

For instance, here’s a story about a study of schizotypy from about three years ago. People with schizotypal personalities – such as Albert Einstein and Emily Dickinson – are somewhat like schizophrenics in their oddities of perceiving, thinking and communicating, but not actually schizophrenic. They also tend to be highly creative. In the study, though all participants showed activity in both brain lobes while creatively engaged, the schizotypes showed much more intense right-brain activity when performing a creative task than both normal people and schizophrenics.

“In the scientific community, the popular idea that creativity exists in the right side of the brain is thought to be ridiculous, because you need both hemispheres of your brain to make novel associations and to perform other creative tasks,” Brad Folley, a Vanderbilt University psychologist who took part in the study, said in a news release. “We found that all three groups, schizotypes, schizophrenics and normal controls, did use both hemispheres when performing creative tasks. But the brain scans of the schizotypes showed a hugely increased activation of the right hemisphere compared to the schizophrenics and the normal controls.”

Interesting. Yet, just today, Peter Chaban , a teacher-researcher at the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto, called the idea of right-brain specialization one of the “widely held misconceptions” and ”outdated myths” about creativity.

Chaban does credit cognition in both halves of the brain with some responsibility for creativity, but he gives equal weight to personality and environment – nature and nurture – as well. In his blog, he mildly takes issue with Malcolm Gladwell’s buzzed-about new book, Outliers: The Story of Success, in which Gladwell tries to make the case that creativity is more the result of environmental influences and constant practice than the luck of the wiring in a person’s head. Chaban agrees that external factors have an effect on creative ability. But he asserts that, together, cognition (how your brain functions), personality (high motivation) and environment (outside encouragement) form the three-legged stool on which creativity stands and that without any one of those legs, a person’s creativity will not flourish.   

I’m inclined to suppose that personality is directly related to cognition and that it also affects environment (if you’re disagreeable, are people apt to support and encourage you?), but that’s a topic for someone with actual psychological and sociological chops to pursue. 

What I can say with some authority is that creative people care a great deal less about the cognition and personality sides of it than about the environment. They want and need support and encouragement. So whether or not science catches up to the current economic and educational fascination with the benefits of creativity and proves either that all of us can be extremely creative or that only a few special people can, the ones who are talented right now are just fine with the increasing appreciation and resources they’re getting.

What do entrepreneurs and other creative people want?

Now that we’re all about to embark on the final sprint of the presidential-campaign marathon, maybe it’s time to figure out what we want from the next four years. 

I mean, if you were choosing a job or a school or even a new car, you’d determine what characteristics or features you wanted in it, right? Then you’d compare your list to the available products or services and decide which one gave you the most good stuff with the smallest number of problems.

So let’s do the same for 2009-12. Let’s make a list of results we’d like to see over the next four years. Then each of us can decide which candidate or party or platform plank seems most likely to bring those things about.

What do entrepreneurs want? We’re creative people, in our way - risk-takers, builders, maybe even visionaries of a sort. We don’t sit around and wait for someone else to wave a wand and make things better. We take action ourselves. Our motivations vary, but all of us want to have some control over our own destinies, persuade the world that we have something desirable to offer and make a living in the process.

What would make our lives and businesses better? I have the floor, so I’ll start, but don’t hesitate to add your comments.

My list begins with peace. We’ve got to have it to save lives, save money and rebuild our relationships with the other nations of the world. Our safety, quality of life and our economic survival depend on it.

Next, I want revolutionary change in the fuels we produce and use and in the way we treat the environment. One cannot happen without the other. We need viable solar and wind power now – they’re the only energy sources that are both limitless in supply and completely nonpolluting. And we need to take other steps to reduce global warming and assure clean air, water, soil and habitats for ourselves and all living creatures forevermore. Who are these people so obsessed with money, so afraid of change and so stupidly heartless that they don’t care that they’re poisoning their own children and wrecking the world? Government and industry must change or they will have no natural resources or human markets left. (And I don’t foresee cockroaches purchasing plastic packaging and SUVs.)

Logically, then, I also want governments, foundations, venture capitalists, universities and any other underwriters of enterprise to invest a great deal more in R&D, especially in very early-stage ideas and enterprises that might help us all out of these terrible messes we’re in. Far too much money goes to conglomerate business that is deeply invested in the status quo, not to mention cavalier about laws and regulations, ruthless about cutting and outsourcing jobs, unfairly price-supported and tax-loopholed and winked at by the enforcers of our supposed antitrust laws.

If we’re going to have more entrepreneurs, scientists, artists and other creative people coming up with better ideas, processes and products for us, we have to have a far better educational system. It has to be one that no longer reflects the outmoded values and needs of the 19th or even the 20th century, but one that rejects rote, assembly-line teaching and testing and embraces creative thought, experimentation, discussion, critical evaluation and equality of opportunity for every person regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic status, religion, medical condition or any other such factor. All who can think are needed to improve this world and every last one deserves the proper preparation.

And while I entirely support freedom of religion as ensured by the Constitution, I also want freedom from religion in government. Our science, our art, our educational, health and political systems have been hostages of idiosyncratic beliefs – and aggressively controlling believers - for far too long. Religions are not the sole proprietors of morals and ethics and it’s time all of our laws reflected the right of individual Americans to live and work unmolested by the spiritual dictates of others. There can be no intellectual freedom where a theocracy rules or an Inquisition lurks – no matter what religion the theocracy and Inquisition represent.        

These are the Big Five, as far as I’m concerned. They’re going to steer my vote in every election from now on, just as they steer my actions as a human being and businessperson.

So let me ask again: What do you want for your next four years?