Reasoning and Personal Creativity

Creative things are always original. Originality is not sufficient to guarantee creativity, for some original things are worthless, unattractive, or otherwise uncreative. It is a one-way relationship: creative things are always original, but original things are not always creative. The fact that originality is not sufficient for creativity indicates that creativity involves something in addition to originality. Usually that additional element is defined as a kind of usefulness, appropriateness, or fit (e.g., Runco & Charles, 1993). When the task at hand requires problem solving, creativity leads to a solution that is both original and effective. Bruner (1962) described that part of creativity that is not accounted for by originality as effective surprise. When the task is not a kind of problem, creativity leads to original and aesthetically pleasing results rather than a solution per se. Whatever term we use, this additional element of creativity is important for the present purposes because it requires reasoning. It is reasoning that insures that original things are effective and aesthetically appealing. In that light, all creative performances depend on reasoning. It is unlike the reasoning that is involved in other cognitive activities, but similar to it – after all, all reasoning is reasoning. There is some sort of commonality. In fact, it is possible to model reasoning in such as way as to capture both creative and noncreative cognition. The differences between creative and noncreative reasoning are easily built into the model. Such a model is described late in this chapter. This model is somewhat contrary to existing models of the creative process. Most existing models describe stages of creative thought. Often creative thinking is described as beginning with a divergent or generative stage producing options, and then a critical convergent stage allows selections (e.g., Norlander & Gustafson, 1997; Runco, 2002; Wallas, 1926). Here I consider the possibility that creative thinking is instead one coherent process – a kind of reasoning process. It is more simultaneous than sequential. When we reason creatively, our thinking is directed toward the