Deck 6: Thinking

Question 1

What are divergent and convergent thinking? Provide examples on how these relate to creativity.

Answer 1

Divergent thinking is a mental approach that takes many paths to solutions, as opposed to a single logical path to one best solution (which characterizes convergent thinking), and it is a key feature of creativity (Runco & Acar, 2012). For example, the scoring for the alternate uses task rewards divergent thinking with points for generating many different and original answers across various categories of use (Silvia et al., 2008). Divergent thought is helpful for creative solutions, and contrasts with the convergent thinking needed to solve problems with straightforward or single best answers.
For example, divergent thinking might help an architect consider novel designs for a new bridge. Later these designs might be tested with convergent thinking that applies formulas for calculating how much weight each bridge design can handle before collapsing. Recall that truly creative works must be both novel and useful. Divergent thinking is needed for the novelty, but some 'solutions' will later be dismissed for the bad ideas they are.

Question 2

Describe the relationship between age and wisdom and provide relevant examples. Which other individual differences are associated with wisdom and to what extent?

Answer 2

In essence, there are not clear and consistent age differences in wisdom measures across adulthood (Baltes & Staudinger, 2000; Brienza et al., 2017; Grossmann, 2017; Staudinger & Glück, 2011). To be clear, individual studies sometimes find age differences, but they tend to be small, both increasing and decreasing over the life span, or vary by topic and culture.
On the other hand, if we compare wisdom to other kinds of cognitive processes, older people do seem especially resilient with wisdom. That is, memory and processing speed tend to decline with age; thus, the lack of similar decline in wisdom is telling. Wisdom likely suffers too with serious cognitive decline, and among older people there may be a mix of both the exceptionally wise and others who are losing that capacity. In addition, before making too much of small age effects in wisdom, we should mind the gap between real world wisdom and the artificial tasks used to assess it (Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). Despite these cautions, most agree that wisdom requires more than the mere accumulation of years, and some older adults still lack wisdom.
Beyond age, are there other individual differences more associated with wisdom? Of the big five traits, openness is most consistently correlated with various measures of wisdom (Brienza et al., 2017; Staudinger & Glück, 2011). Narrower personality characteristics such as emotion regulation, social intelligence, mindfulness, perspective taking, etc. also correlate with wisdom, though some of these characteristics begin to overlap with self-report measures of wisdom itself.
General intelligence is also positively correlated with wisdom (Staudinger, Lopez, & Baltes, 1997). Although wisdom is seen as going beyond raw intellect-particularly in terms of practical applications-intelligence is often seen as a pre-condition of wisdom. Yet, intelligence and wisdom differ in important ways. For example, unlike intelligence, wisdom is typically associated with psychological well-being. The link goes back to Aristotle who saw practical wisdom as a master virtue and eudaimonia as about living a virtuous life. Contemporary research supports this notion by linking measures of wisdom and well-being, especially a sense of personal growth (Wink & Staudinger, 2016).
Self-focus or ego-centric perspectives may impair wisdom. Hints of this are found when comparing cultural differences in individualism or power; wise reasoning seems more prevalent when these are lower (Grossmann, 2017).

Question 3

What does Howard Gardner's idea of 'multiple intelligences' entail? How are these useful in education? Please support your answers with relevant examples.

Answer 3

For example, Howard Gardner has been influential among educators in suggesting the idea of 'multiple intelligences', emphasizing the distinctiveness of different abilities, rather than the commonalities (see Gardner & Moran, 2006). Many of the intelligences he proposes seem to easily fit within the hierarchy of general intelligence (e.g., linguistic, spatial, and logical), but others may be more distinct (e.g., musical, or bodily-as indicated by good balance; Visser, Ashton, & Vernon, 2006).
In education, it can be useful to teach concepts in multiple ways so as to engage various abilities and thus produce a deeper understanding. This general truism contrasts slightly with the notion of learning styles, or the idea that different people will always learn best with particular kinds of instruction (e.g. visual learners vs. auditory learners-many different styles have been proposed). Although the notion of multiple intelligences implies different modes of learning, even Gardner has been critical of learning styles (Gardner, 2013). Moreover, research has not identified much benefit in teaching to individuals' styles, that is, by matching instruction style to the person (Kozhevnikov, Evans, & Kosslyn, 2014). Instead, having a flexible strategy to teaching and learning seems to work best-different concepts and tasks will require different modes of thinking. For example, some information is best conveyed visually; trying to translate to an audio-only approach is unlikely to help anyone, even if that person has strong musical ability.

Question 4

In decision making, satisficing is characterized by ______.

A) choosing the best option possible
B) choosing a reasonable-even if not optimal-option
C) being satisfied with the first option
D) never choosing at all

Question 5

The tendency to maximize is associated with ______.

A) better decision making (choosing best option)
B) faster decision making
C) higher subjective well-being
D) lower subjective well-being
E) both better decision making (choosing best option) and faster decision making

Question 6

A broad approach to creativity considers ______.

A) processes, products, persons and press
B) general intelligence
C) openness to experience, hierarchical intelligence and wisdom
D) None of these

Question 7

The ability to automatically block out irrelevant information is called ______.

A) being on 'autopilot'
B) latent inhibition
C) unconscious processes
D) mindfulness

Question 8

Creative products are often assessed using ______.

A) lifetime creative accomplishments
B) self-report questionnaires
C) word of mouth
D) both lifetime creative accomplishments and self-report questionnaires
E) Both self-report questionnaires and word of mouth

Question 9

Tests of divergent thinking are positively correlated with which personality trait?

A) Openness to experience
B) Agreeableness
C) Extraversion
D) Conscientiousness

Question 10

Creativity can be facilitated by ______.

A) helping people establish clear routines and sticking to them
B) pushing people out of their habitual ways of behaving
C) getting people to tap into negative emotions more often
D) All of these

Question 11

When straightforward answers are elusive, ______ can help a person understand and balance the trade-offs.

A) maximising
B) decision making
C) practical wisdom
D) inhibition

Question 12

An appreciation of uncertainty is especially important to ______.

A) creativity
B) wisdom
C) intelligence
D) affective forecasting

Question 13

Studies suggest that wise reasoning can be increased by _____.

A) focussing on one's own problems
B) considering another person's problems
C) taking vitamin C tablets
D) living past the age of 85

Question 14

Intelligence is best viewed as having a _____.

A) hierarchical structure
B) predominantly genetic cause
C) specific base in mathematical abilities
D) specific base in linguistic abilities
E) None of these

Question 15

General intelligence ('g') does an especially good job at predicting ______.

A) the field in which someone will excel
B) performance on specific tasks
C) the magnitude of accomplishments
D) scores on personality measures

Question 16

______ represents the kind of things taught explicitly in schools.

A) General intelligence
B) Crystalized intelligence
C) Fluid intelligence
D) Emotional intelligence

Question 17

______ represents the abilities to perceive, understand and regulate emotions in an adaptive way.

A) General intelligence
B) Crystalized intelligence
C) Fluid intelligence
D) Emotional intelligence

Question 18

Affective forecasting studies suggest that people often ______ how much influence events will have on future ______.

A) over-estimate; happiness
B) under-estimate; happiness
C) over-estimate; income
D) under-estimate; income
E) None of these

Question 19

In Schkade and Kahneman's (1998) study, participants from the Midwest guessed that people from California were happier than people like them from the Midwest because of ______.

A) affective forecasting
B) habituation
C) the focussing illusion
D) the 'grass is greener' fallacy