Divergent thinking: definition and ways to improve it

We often talk about thinking as if it were one of the unique characteristics of our species. However, this is lacking, since on the one hand many non-human animals also think, and on the other there is not just one thought, but several types of it.

Next we will see the characteristics of divergent thinking, closely related to creativity, and how it differs from so-called convergent thinking.

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sequential thinking

Thought is basically verbal behavior. Although we are not speaking or writing, we use language to arrive at ideas and “mental images” by combining concepts with each other. This process by which we arrive at conclusions combining categories and meanings occurs in all forms of thought. However, what does vary is the style, the procedure with which we use language to create new information.

Normally, this process is sequential. In the first place, we start from an already verbalized fact, and from it we generate a chain of conclusions. For example:

1. We need onion for cooking.
2. It's Sunday and the shops have closed.
3. The neighbors can leave us a piece of onion.
4. The neighbor we get along with best lives on the floor above us.
5. We must go upstairs to ask for onion.

Language is key in this operation, since each one of the concepts (onion, neighbours, etc.) has in its meaning elements that help us weave a line of reasoning. For example, the onion is a small object that can fit in a house or a store, and the neighbors are people, not places that are not available on Sundays.

This style of thinking is normally called convergent thinking, since of all the semantic elements of each concept, always choose the one that fits a clear line of reasoning, the one that has a clear meaning and relevance in a chain of operations. For example, in this case we don't care if the onions are brown, since that doesn't have important implications for the operation of obtaining one of these ingredients.

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divergent thinking

Divergent thinking, as its name suggests, it is not guided by the logic of making the semantics fit into a more or less rigid scheme in order to reach a very specific question and with a very limited number of answers. On the contrary: in this case, dispersion is sought, the generation of paths of thought that are radically different from each other.

In divergent thinking, you don't go on a cognitive rail that goes from point A (missing onion) to point B (getting this element). Instead of starting from a conceptual process through which we want to pass certain ideas, we start from a stimulus from which many different ideas can be released.

For example, when faced with the image of a coffee pot, we can begin to devise different uses for that object: that is divergent thinking and, in fact, this class of exercises are proposed to measure creativity from the evidence of the Sternberg's triarchic intelligence.

The importance of this cognitive process in creativity

There is no doubt that the habitual use of convergent thinking is essential for our survival. After all, we don't live in an ideal world where we can freely create new ideas just for the sake of it; we need to respond to specific needs that require certain actions and not others.

However, divergent thinking is also important if we do not want to live our whole life on presuppositions that are given from outside. Lateral thinking allows us to deconstruct ideas that seemed self-evident to us until we decided to break them down into various cognitive pathways that were hitherto unexplored.

This is useful in art, for example, since it is a form of expression based on the innovative use of already known elements (lights, colors, textures...). But it is also useful in our day to day.

For example, thanks to divergent thinking we can see our own identity in a radically different way, create alternative narratives of what happened. Some that are not necessarily false, but as appropriate as those that until then only remained valid due to the fact that they did not have explanations that rivaled them.

Furthermore, divergent thinking helps to question one's own ideology, the moral and political lens through which we see reality. This makes us more sensitive to other people's ideas. whose ideas, although we do not share, we can come to understand and, from there, find ways to empathize.

From all this it follows that cognitive creativity is the best antidote to fanaticism. The reason is simple: it challenges any dogma and helps to detect explanations that are not based on the elaborate beliefs of systems of ideas imposed by sects, small groups that punish diversity of opinions and other social circles Similar. For this reason, divergent thinking is something to claim.

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