Relationship between Intelligence and Creativity

 

Relationship between Intelligence and Creativity

Or

Relationship between Creativity and Intelligence 

Guilford's calculation of intelligence and creativity.

The research work of Guilford and his colleagues on calculation of intelligence (1950 and 1956) makes clear the existence of two separate streams of thought. 

These are- convergent thinking and divergent thinking

The First stream of thought contains only one predetermined correct answer; as a result of the second stream of thought, diverse answers are born, which have Flow, flexibility, originality and expansion capabilities. 

Convergent thinking is associated with intelligence and divergent thinking indicates the generally understood term creativity.

 

Most psychologists agree that there is an important relationship between creativity and intelligence. A creative person appears intelligent. The general conclusion about the relationship between intelligence and creativity is that a certain level of intelligence is necessary to be creative. Being more or less intelligent than a certain level has no effect on a person's level of creativity.

Not only this, the level of intelligence required for creativity, which varies from field to field, is sometimes surprisingly low. What is more important than the level of intelligence measured by an IQ test is how effectively a creative person uses whatever intelligence he has.

It is often seen that some people have high creativity but their intellectual level is low. Similarly, it is also not necessary that those who have high intellectual level also have high level of creativity. The coexistence of high intellectual level and high creativity depends on external factors. Creativity cannot function in a vacuum. In this, previously acquired knowledge is used. The use of this knowledge is related to intellectual abilities.

 

Therefore, coordination of creativity and intelligence is natural.

Is sharp intelligence necessary for a creative person? Are all highly intelligent people creative?

Today people are engaged in research on a large scale to find answers to these questions. Research work in this direction is being done very rapidly in India and outside India, but till now no definite results have been achieved. Some research works reveal high positive correlation between intelligence and creativity and some studies reveal zero correlation.

Therefore, it is not necessary that a student who has higher IQ will also have more creativity.

Creativity means the ability to create new things. It means the ability to solve the problem through a new approach. If a person creates a new thing, makes a new discovery, finds a new way to solve a problem then it will be said that that person is creative.

 

According to Chaplin -"Creativity means the ability to create new shapes in art or mechanical science or to solve problems through new approaches. "

A major characteristic of a creative person is intelligence. There is no doubt that intelligence is necessary for creativity or doing creative work, but creativity does not require high intelligence.

Getzels and Jackson (1972) tried to find out the relationship between popular intelligence tests and creativity tests. Some students of a school located in Chicago were divided into two groups. Students with high creativity but low IQ were kept in one group and students with high IQ and low creativity were kept in the other group. Students of both these groups were tested in the Field of school achievement and personality qualities.

 

The conclusion was that the group of high IQ students whose general IQ was 132 were found to be no better than the other group when tested on school achievement. A correlation of 0.11 to 0.49 was found between the intellectual ability and creative ability of these students. This also revealed that having an intellectual ability more than about 120 IQ does not have any impact on creative activity.