Creativity and Divergence

In his article “Why Creative People Seem To Have The Messiest Minds”, published on Business Insider, Dec 29 2014 (1), Scott Barry Kaufman, talks about a new paper offering clues on how creative minds might work.

"Bringing together lots of different research threads over the years, they identified three "super-factors" of personality that predict creativity: Plasticity, Divergence, and Convergence."

This is a compelling theory, as I see evidence to support it in my own creative thinking.

I found Divergence a particularly interesting concept, ability to challenge the status quo, a burning desire to explore the truth, at the expense of being massively unpopular. Conformance kills creativity.

"Divergence consists of non-conformity, impulsivity, low agreeableness, and low conscientiousness. People high in divergence may seem like jerks, but they are often just very independent thinkers." 

In this Longreads article (2), Brian Eno, Musician and Composer says:

"'I think negative ambition is a big part of what motivates artists,' Eno told me. 'It’s the thing you’re pushing against. When I was a kid, my negative ambition was that I didn’t want to get a job.'"

Creative ambition brings great deal of risk-taking, at times a blind dive into big unknowns. You need to break your protective shell to find out your artistic truth, at the same time making yourself vulnerable to greater pain of being marginalised, the less you worry about such pains, the more likely you’ll reach your artistic identity.

References:

(1) Business Insider Article:
Why Creative People Seem To Have The Messiest Minds
Read more: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2014/12/24/the-messy-minds-of-creative-people/#ixzz3NcoJsYKK
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-creative-people-have-messy-minds-2014-12

(2) Longreads Article:
Brian Eno and the Power of Negative Ambition
http://blog.longreads.com/2014/07/02/brian-eno-and-the-power-of-negative-ambition/