Divergent Thinking

Creative thinking is often dichotomized into thinking that is convergent and thinking that is divergent. Of the two, convergent thinking is much simpler to measure and operationalize, whereas the latter, a cognitive process that engenders a variety of novel and unconventional products, has proven far more difficult to model, measure, and predict. To address the complexity of this difficulty, it may be helpful to clarify what divergent thinking is not. By framing a discussion of divergent thinking upon a theoretical delimitation of convergent thinking, one may develop a firmer foundation for a description of cognitive processes that are, by negative comparison, divergent.

The objective of convergent thinking is to generate a conventional, consensually agreed-upon solution to a problem. The problem presents as an initial triggering mechanism or process input—be it a test prompt, an assignment question, or an event—that generates the production of a correct or an incorrect problem solution. Convergent cognitions, therefore, are necessarily goal-directed, and thinking tends toward a linear, serialized sequence of subprocesses channeled via feedback mechanisms such as task monitoring, evaluation, and output verification. Traditional models of the creative process, such as Graham Wallas's Preparation → Incubation → Illumination → Verification and John Dewey's Difficulty Felt → Difficulty Defined → Information Surveyed → Solutions Suggested → Outcome Considered reflect a deep-structure supposition that creative thinking is a linear, goal-directed process of solving a problem. In addition, to the extent that the goal of convergent thinking is to achieve objectives external to the thinker—that is, success and failure are not based on internal, personal criteria, but rather success is based on the opinions, judgments, and preexistent correct solutions of external agencies—affective engagement with the problem to be solved may, at least initially, tend toward an extrinsic rather than an intrinsic basis for individual motivation and problem relevance.

In contrast to convergent thinking, divergent thinking does not rely on a problem input to initiate cognitive process. A sculptor may ‘seek’ a form in the grain of a block of marble or a poet may ‘chase’ the meaning of a memory triggered by a chance image that then initiates clusters of associated images, memories, and word sounds. These associative clusters (conscious and otherwise), domain-specific facts, procedures and concepts, chance discoveries, environmental intrusions, and dynamical process changes need not work in a serialized fashion, but rather, subsystems may parallel process in simultaneity. As a result, in order to be successful, the divergent thinker has to remain sensitive to competing, often chaotic interactions while maintaining the cognitive equilibrium necessary to generate a coherent artifact.

The above description suggests that divergent thinking processes engender an artifact that is, in a sense, an emergent by-product of thinking, not the end product of problem solving. Indeed, this product as by-product paradigm implies that divergent production, unlike convergent production, renders impossible the prediction of a final outcome or the prospect of recreating cognitive and affective processes back to an initial impulse. Another way to consider this phenomenon is, as the divergent thinker creates, that which she or he creates affects and changes the creator, which in turn affects and changes that which is created. A definition of divergent thinking, therefore, must take into consideration the following subconstruct: Divergent thinking is simultaneously and reciprocally a creating process and a learning process. Finally, apropos to the affective domain, if divergent thinking has the capacity to be internally triggered, and ideas are accepted, rejected, and integrated as guided by personal, internal, intuitive proclivities, then process-associated intrinsic motivation may play a greater role in divergent thinking than it could, comparatively, in convergent thinking.

...