New on Minds and Models this week

This week on my psychology blog, I discuss procrastination, and why pressure can sometimes be a good thing and other times be very harmful.

New on Minds and Models this week.

This post should be of interest to anyone in education or working on creative pursuits such as writing or music.  Click here to read on.

The best age for creativity

A good blog post on Write it Sideways about 'late blooming novelists' made me wonder if there is a peak age for creativity.  The young writers I teach have a lot of interesting ideas and creative energy, but good writing seems to be associated with a bit of wisdom and a lot of graft.  So what is the best age?

Galenson (2006) suggests that the stereotype of an artistic genius - a young, energetic and audacious visionary - only covers half of the story.  While some great creative types may fit into that mould - Mozart, Picasso and T.S. Elliot, for example - others follow a very different pattern.  Some creatives - Paul Cézanne for example - only achieve their greatest work after many years of struggling.

Boy with Skull by Cezanne,
photo by freeparking.

Gladwell (2009) describes the cases of two contemporary American writers - one who succeeds early and another who needs many years of graft.  Not only do they differ in how long they took to achieve success or fame, but they also work in different ways.  Gladwell suggests that the brilliant young things tend to do less research and start with a clearer idea of what they achieve.  The older creative type tend to repeatedly doubt and reject their own work, and see each thing they do as being more about progress than product.  They also tend to do much more research into their subject matter.  Do either of these types sound familiar?

A related issue comes up in the study of scientific breakthroughs.  Csikszentmihalyi (1996) states the scientists, rather than having a flash of inspiration as is popularly perceived, typically have an insight of true greatness after many decades of work.  Great scientists and inventors tend to have amassed a lot fo skills and knowledge before the have their bigger insights.  In the arts, children can be intensively schooled (Picasso was the son of an art teacher), but in science, it may be almost impossible to acquire the tools without many years of work.  It would explain the shortage of child prodigies in particle physics!

It is an interesting question whether the likes of Mozart and Picasso are geniuses in their fields, and if so, does the term 'genius' apply to someone who has had to work harder/take longer in order to achieve?

References
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996).  Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention.  New York: HarperCollins.
Galenson, D.W. (2006).  Old Masters and Young Geniuses: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Geniuses.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gladwell, M. (2009).  What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures.  London: Penguin.

A dirty secret

Writing is often treated, especially by new writers, as a kind of dirty secret: something they don't like to admit to in public.  This may be because a new, inexperienced writer who does the opposite - tells the world about their writerly-ness and creative potential - is likely to come across as very annoying!

Of course that sort of attitude could be found in any artist.  Has anyone met a visual artist who thinks that the world owes them a living - a creative genius before they have actually achieved anything?  Yes, me too!  However, at least they can (in most cases) point to an art diploma.

Partly because of the way writing is (not) taught in schools, a lot of beginner writers seem to have misconceptions about the amount of work required to do it well.  Most people can write in their native language.  They enjoy books.  It is easy to assume that you can 'do' creative writing.  This is a bit like learning the piano, and then settling down to compose a concerto.  Being able to play the instrument (or write the language) is a prerequisite, but it isn't the only required skill.

There may also be a misconception of the word 'creativity' - as if this means that all you need is to swim about in your own imagination and something wonderful is bound to result.  It will be very few writers who manage that, unfortunately.  The process may be enjoyable.  But it is much more likely to be successful if the key skills are learned, and some feedback from other writers is obtained. 

And for that, the dirty secret might need to come out into the open.