Usually used to solve problems and tasks. It consists in finding many solutions to the same problem.

Divergent thinking was studied by E.P. Torrance, D. Gilford, C. Taylor, G. Grubber, I. Hine, A. B. Schneder, D. Rogers.

Complemented convergent thinking.

convergent thinking(from Lat. convergere converge) is based on the strategy of precisely using previously learned algorithms for solving a specific problem, i.e. when instructions are given on the sequence and content of elementary operations to solve this problem.

There are special tests of divergent abilities, for example, the Gestalt and Jackson's test: the test subject needs to find as many ways as possible to use objects such as a brick, a piece of cardboard, a bucket, a rope, a cardboard box, a towel.

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✪ 9 SIGNS that YOU are SMARTER than others

✪ Great cartoon about the laws of thinking

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How can you know how much one person is smarter than another? Many people will say that for this you need to use one of the IQ tests to determine intelligence. But this method has recently received a lot of criticism and is not always suitable for a general understanding of mental abilities. Most scientists believe that in order to determine the mind, there are quite obvious and at the same time not unimportant signs that will help to find out how much a particular person is smarter than most people. Research shows that music can develop a child's mind in many ways. First of all, music lessons improve verbal intelligence. And the IQ of a child taking music lessons will be an order of magnitude higher than that of his peers who are doing something else or not at all fond of anything. The study showed that children gifted in various fields were also involved in music. You are more likely to be smarter than your siblings if you are the oldest child in the family. The truth is clearly not in genetics. As a result of a large study by Norwegian doctors, the health and IQ levels of 250,000 young men were analyzed. As a result, it turned out that the first-born had an average IQ of 103 points. The indicator for children born second was 100 points, and for those who were born third, only 99. The researchers explained this indicator by the psychology of interaction between children and parents. Firstborns often receive more attention, which increases their chances of becoming smarter and more successful. Another not unimportant fact is what physical shape you are in. According to a study conducted in 2006, scientists came to the conclusion that the larger a person's waist, the lower his mental abilities. At the same time, another study was conducted, which confirmed that eleven-year-old children who scored fewer points in verbal and non-verbal tests were more likely to be obese than their smarter peers. But as a result of a study conducted in 2014, in which 600 students took part, it was shown that dog lovers are more friendly and inclined to communicate. However, the tests carried out clearly showed that the mental abilities are much higher in cat lovers than in dogs. In most cases, children who were breastfed in infancy are more intellectually developed than their peers who did without mother's milk. A study of over 3,000 babies from the UK and New Zealand found that babies who were breastfed scored an average of 7 points higher on IQ tests. Some researchers often associate left-handedness with crime. Indeed, according to statistics, the share of left-handers in the underworld is somewhat higher. However, later scientists found that left-handedness is associated with such a concept as divergent thinking. This term is responsible for a person's ability to be creative, as well as the ability to generate new ideas very quickly. It is most common in men. In 2008, Princeton University conducted a study showing that children in kindergarten who were taller than average performed better on intelligence tests. Then, as adults, they earn much more money than their short peers. There is also a link between IQ and alcohol consumption. It turned out that among the inhabitants of the US and the UK, there is not a small percentage of those who at a young age showed excellent results in IQ tests, and already in adulthood began to drink alcohol regularly. Most smart people have a great sense of humor. In one study, a group of four hundred students were asked to come up with funny names for different cartoons. As expected, those students who did well came up with much funnier names than the rest. In fact, everything is extremely simple: the smarter you become, the more often you understand that the scope for perfection is boundless and, as the great philosopher Socrates would say in this case: “I only know that I know nothing, but others they don't know that either."

With great disappointment, psychologists unanimously note that the tasks that modern traditional education offers to schoolchildren in 70% of cases require only an almost mechanical reproduction of the learned material. At the same time, psychologists do not at all question the unconditional usefulness of mastering knowledge that has been tested by time and accumulated by the experience of all mankind.

The disappointment is caused by the fact that in this way schoolchildren develop only one type of thinking, at a time when two are required to make an independent decision. What kinds of thinking are we talking about here?

About forty years ago, a psychologist J. Gilford proposed to distinguish between convergent and divergent thinking e. Convergent he called thinking, with the help of which a person must find the only correct answer to the question posed.

Such thinking is required, for example, if one asks:

• What time is it now?
• How many days, weeks and months are there in a year?
• What is the capital of this or that state?
• What is written in the job description?
• How to drive a car?
• What is your age?
• What is the name of your place of work?

Convergent thinking operates:

• historical dates;
• mathematical formulas;
• cooking recipes;
• safety instructions;

and helps us orient ourselves in a homogeneous, repetitive and predictable life and professional situation.

Convergent thinking develops through the ability to thoroughly explore the facts that are opening before us. In order to use your convergent thinking, it is enough to learn how to consistently ask questions like:

• When?
• Why?

For example, to develop convergent thinking in children, they are asked to answer these questions after reading a book or watching a movie. It is easy to see that convergent thinking is aimed at reproducing the acquired knowledge, and it is the more successful, the more accurately this knowledge is mastered.

Divergent thinking allows you to choose several relatively equally correct answers to one question. Today's diverse and highly turbulent environment requires a person to be more and more willing to turn to divergent thinking.

Here is just a very modest list of situations where decision-making based on convergent thinking is obviously not effective:

• finding ways to reduce costs,
• choice of place and method of recreation,
• career planning,
• child education,
• relationship with superiors
• article writing,
• problem statement,
• personality characteristic,
• the use of multifunctional items.

Only divergent thinking can be a reliable assistant here.

Techniques for developing a divergent mind

So, it is clear that the features of the development of divergent thinking do not allow us to hope that it will develop simultaneously with the assimilation of knowledge.

These features should include:

• the ability to operate with acquired knowledge in a situation of uncertainty,
• skills to generate different approaches to the task,
• understanding that the same problem can be solved in different ways,
• the ability to distinguish between problems with the only correct solution and problems that allow the choice of the optimal solution from several equally correct ones.

The development of divergent thinking in adults and children, in principle, involves the same techniques and techniques.. For example, both adults and children will benefit from the following exercises.

With Wikium you can develop divergent thinking online

"In someone else's shoes." When solving a problem, try to look at it through the eyes of other people and imagine how these others would solve it. It is important not just to be in a different role, but to understand the difference between your gaze and the gaze of the one whose role you are currently playing. Let it be a variety of personalities and persons - the heroes of your favorite books and films, your relatives and friends, colleagues and rivals. When talking with those who are very different from you, try to track the logic of his reasoning, to understand why he thinks so. In a word, learn to look at the situation from different points of view and think like another person.

"Professional photographer". If you observe how a tourist and a professional photographer take photographs, then you will certainly be struck by their different relationship to the first frame. The tourist will choose an angle that seems interesting to him, click the shutter of the camera and switch to searching for a new plot. A professional photographer, even finding a good angle, will not be satisfied with the first photo. He will definitely change something in the setting of the shot and repeat it, then change something again and repeat it again. And so on until you are completely satisfied with the result.

Try yourself in the role of a professional photographer. Go to a photo session and take each frame only after changing the angle several times. Try to guess what shot a tourist would have taken if he was in this place, and - give up these angles. Look for something unexpected, fundamentally different from the "tourist" look.

Use the "professional photographer" technique when you solve any problem. Don't let yourself stop at the first answer that comes to mind. Keep “looking for the best shot”, say to yourself: “This is probably not the best solution. Perhaps it is worth continuing the search.

"Organization of information". Since the development of divergent thinking relies on the involvement of a wide variety of information, it makes sense to arrange these information flows in a certain way.

You will be very well helped to quickly find the information you need, such techniques as:

• clustering,
• typology,
• classification,
• building matrices,
• development of cognitive schemas,
• creation of various tables.

For example, if you look at the tools that are used in developing an organization development strategy or a marketing strategy, you will be surprised by their variety:

• Ishikawa fish,
• goal tree,
• task tree,
• The 5 Rs - 5 Whys approach
• BCG matrix,
• Porter's Five Forces
• Risk calculation table,
• Goal Decomposition

and many more.

Practice divergent thinking

Divergent thinking is developed, among other things, by the regular practice of referring to it.. For effective mental work, it is important to understand and accept the psychological fact that an idea and a judgment are of a different nature. An idea is initially born as a weak and fragile assumption, which at the very beginning of its appearance is easy to destroy “in the vine” with the help of a categorical judgment.

This is why it is important to separate in time the generation of ideas (the work of our divergent thinking) and the judgment of their viability (the work of convergent thinking). It was this consideration that guided the American engineer Alan Osborne when he proposed using his famous “brainstorming” technique to solve extraordinary problems.

Imagine that you turn on a hot water faucet and a warm water faucet at the same time. You know that in this case you will get warm water, and not at all two jets flowing from the tap at the same time - hot and cold. In the same way, instead of two streams of hot ideas and cold sober criticism, you get a stream of barely warm ideas and slightly cool criticism.

At the stage of generating ideas, try not to move on to evaluating them until you admit that in the process of searching you have exhausted all your mental capabilities. The probability of finding the desired solution increases with the number of proposed solutions. In other words, the more solutions you can come up with, the better. Our brains are terribly lazy by nature, so they happily grab the first alternative as the best one. Don't let your brain fool you like that.

Searching and generating solutions only seem to be creative work and an interesting activity. In fact, this is hard work, where a suitable option appears only after at least two dozen ideas have been proposed. Brainstormers are even more categorical, they believe that the first ten ideas, as a rule, do not carry any useful potential.

In real life, convergent and divergent thinking tend to be inextricably linked..

So, to make a decision, you need to take three main steps:

• Step 1- arm yourself with the knowledge necessary to solve the problem;
• Step 2- generate several solutions, then compare them and choose the best one for a given situation;
• Step 3– choose the right ways to implement the chosen solution.

It is easy to see that the first step involves mainly the work of memory aimed at reproducing the necessary knowledge, the second one involves divergent thinking, and the third one relies on the process of convergent thinking.

The concept of divergent thinking serves as an explanation of the creativity of thinking within a certain direction - the direction of J. Gilford. However, creativity (creative thinking) is studied from the standpoint of other explanatory schemes, so creative thinking and divergent thinking are not identical concepts, which is also noted by Dorfman. As examples, he cites the understanding of creativity as a by-product of Ya. A. Ponomarev’s activity, as an intellectual activity and creative ability of D. B. Bogoyavlenskaya, an investment by R. Sternberg, E. E. Grigorenko, etc.

Particularly important in the analysis of divergent thinking seems to us to be a clear connection between divergentness and the mechanism of associations. The associative theory of creative thinking explicates this connection. In other works, on the contrary, associations and divergence are treated as two sides of the theory of creative thinking.

The associative theory of creativity is based on the idea that associations are the basis of creative thinking. Creative thinking is formed, in particular, as a result of new combinations of associations between ideas. The more distant the ideas between which there are associations, the more creative thinking is considered - provided that these associations meet the requirements of the task and are characterized by utility. Mednick distinguished three ways of creative solutions based on associations: through intuition, finding similarities between distant elements (ideas), mediating some ideas by other ideas. Martindale argues that all creative products arise from the recombination of known ideas through new associations. Based on analogy (similarity), creative thinking is able to establish associations between previously unrelated ideas. This feature of creative thinking is central and covers the specifics of individual areas of creative activity (an opposite view on the areas of creative activity that give specificity to creativity, see: Sternberg,.

According to Eysenck, creativity is a non-random search-combination process aimed at creative problem solving. The central feature of creativity is "over-inclusion" ("over-inclusiveness"). Cognitive overinclusion is the ability to produce many creative ideas through the production of a range of associations - as wide as the associations are relevant to the problem. Eysenck argued that cognitive over-inclusion is genetically determined, associated with psychotism and creates a predisposition to creative behavior in people (compare with Druzhinin's data). The presence of unusual associations characterizes creative thinking. Thus, there is a link between the ability to generate associations, divergent thinking and creativity.

The question of the relationship between divergent and associative creative thinking is a particular problem. Since the coexistence of several ideas can serve as the basis for both their divergence and their associations. But the coexistence of several divergent ideas, leading to a decrease in their coherence (divergence), and the coexistence of several ideas, leading to an increase in their coherence (association), are formally mutually exclusive. But, given that when a bifurcation occurs at the crossroads of "evolutionary channels", several new and different development options arise. Moreover, there are as many of these options as there are new “channels” coming to the “crossroads”. It seems to us that this "crossroads" is the analogy of associations. Thus association is contained in the very genesis of divergent thought.

According to Dorfman, associations and divergence can be viewed as phenomena that manifest themselves in different layers of thinking. Divergent ideas are found in the surface layers of thinking, and unusual associations, on the contrary, are born in deeper layers of thinking. They may represent fragments of deep associations. The latter suggests that divergence and associations do not exclude, but rather complement each other and are interconnected.

In general, Dorfman correctly writes that divergent thinking is not synonymous with creative. Firstly, the creativity of thinking can be studied from different angles, and secondly, divergent thinking itself is not always creative. Divergent thinking can be made up of a number of ideas, but each (or most) of them can be banal.

In this section, we have presented the ideas of foreign colleagues about the associative nature of divergent thinking as impartial experts in our interpretation of Guildford's theory.

Solve problems by brainstorming. It's a way of layering ideas. One idea spawns another, which spawns another idea, and so on until the list of random ideas becomes creative and disorganized. If you are practicing this method with a group of people, then allow everyone to speak freely. Don't look for a practical solution. Instead, start collecting ideas that have even the slightest relation to the problem.

• All ideas are recorded and not criticized.
• Once the list of ideas is complete, you can go back and re-evaluate their value.

Keep a diary. By using a diary, you can immediately write down spontaneous ideas that usually come to mind in unusual places and at unusual times. Such ideas can be written down by one of the participants in the collective brainstorming session. Later, your diary or journal can become a collection of ideas that can be further organized and developed.

Free letter. Focus on one particular topic and write about it for a short period of time. Write down everything that comes to your mind, if it relates to this topic. Don't pay attention to spelling and punctuation. Just write. Later, you can organize, correct and revise your text. The challenge is to take a particular topic and develop several different thoughts in a short period of time.

Create a visual representation of a topic or a link diagram. Present your brainstorming ideas in the form of a visual map or drawing. Be sure to include links between ideas. For example, you can choose the topic “How to start your own business”.

• Write "How to Start a Business" in the center of a piece of paper and circle it.
• Let's say that you have decided on four categories, which include: products / services, financing, market and employees.
• So, you need to draw four lines for each category from the circle with the main topic. Now your diagram will look like a child's picture of the sun.
• At the end of each of the four lines, draw a circle and write all four categories (goods/services, financing, market, and employees) in them.
• Suppose that you divided each category into two more sub-items. For example, the category "goods/services" would include "clothes" and "shoes", while the category "financing" would consist of "loans" and "savings".
• Now draw two lines from each category circle to make small suns with two rays.
• At the ends of each of the lines (or "beams"), draw a smaller circle and write your subpoints into them. For example, for the category "goods/services", write "clothing" in the circle of the first sub-item and "shoes" in the circle of the second. For the category "financing", write "loan" in the circle of the first sub-item and "savings" in the circle of the second.
• Once completed, such a map can be used to further develop the topic. This template combines divergent and convergent thinking.

divergent thinking

Divergent thinking(from lat. divergere - to diverge) - a method of creative thinkingusually used to solve problems and problems. It consists in finding many solutions to the same problem.

Divergent thinking was studied by E. Torrance, D. Gilford, K. Taylor, G. Grubber, I. Hine, A. B. Schneder, D. Rogers.

Complemented convergent thinking.

convergent thinking(from Lat. convergere converge) is based on the strategy of precise use of pre-learned algorithms for solving a specific problem, i.e. when instructions are given on the sequence and content of elementary operations to solve this problem.

There are special tests of divergent abilities, for example, the Gestalt and Jackson's test: the test subject needs to find as many ways as possible to use objects such as a brick, a piece of cardboard, a bucket, a rope, a cardboard box, a towel.

Divergent Thinking Methods

see also

Literature

• Razumnikova, O. M. Functional organization of the cerebral cortex in divergent and convergent thinking: The role of gender and personality characteristics: dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Biological Sciences. - Novosibirsk, 2003. - 312 p.

• Gilford, J. Three sides of the intellect // Psychology of thinking - M .: Progress, 1965.

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See what "Divergent Thinking" is in other dictionaries:

divergent thinking- Etymology. Comes from lat. diverge to diverge. Category. Form of thinking. Specificity. Based on the strategy of generating multiple solutions to a single problem. Psychological dictionary. THEM. Kondakov. 2000...

- (from lat. divergere to diverge) a form of thinking. Based on the strategy of generating multiple solutions to a single problem… Psychological Dictionary

divergent thinking- (lat. - discrepancy) - this is thinking that is able to grasp and comprehend the whole variety of phenomena of reality, their properties and connections between them. Manifested in the use of various forms of information organization, including different ones - ... ... Fundamentals of spiritual culture (encyclopedic dictionary of a teacher)

DIVERGENT THINKING- See thinking, divergent...

divergent thinking- a special kind of thinking, which assumes that there can be many equally correct and equal answers to the same question. It is generally accepted that this kind of thinking is one of the components of creativity ... Human psychology: glossary of terms

Divergent thinking- (lat. divergere to deviate, diverge) characterizes the movement of thought in different directions in order to cover various aspects of the problem in search of its solution or consider the possibility of solving the problem from different angles. Thinking like this....

THINKING, DIVERGENT- Thinking, which is characterized by a process of moving in different directions, a divergence of ideas in order to cover various aspects relevant to a given problem. Such thinking is often associated with creativity, as it often gives ... ... Explanatory Dictionary of Psychology

Divergent thinking- thinking that manifests itself when the problem has yet to be defined or disclosed and when there is no predetermined, established way of solving ... Dictionary-reference book on philosophy for students of medical, pediatric and dental faculties

Lateral thinking- a method or heuristic of solving problems, in which the individual tries to look at the problem from different angles, avoiding its direct, frontal solution. Synonym: Divergent thinking... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy

creativity- (from English creativity) the level of creative giftedness, the ability to be creative, which is a relatively stable characteristic of the individual. Initially, K. was considered as a function of the intellect, and the level of development of the intellect was identified with ... ... Great Psychological Encyclopedia

Books

• Solving problems using the methods of special services. 14 Powerful Tools, Jones M.. A collection of proven and practical tools for making better decisions faster and simplifying problems. Modern humanity knows more about the world around us than anyone ...