What happens to creativity as we get older?

George Land and Beth Jarman developed a test for NASA that could measure the creative potential of their engineers and scientists. After the effectiveness of this experiment was found, scientists still had the question: where does creativity come from? They then decided to conduct a study and apply a sample of people to a test that sought to discover the ability to come up with new ideas for problem solving.

In the 1, 600-member group of four- to five-year-olds, scientists found that 98 percent of them enjoyed their creativity fully, not surprisingly.

Interested in conducting a longitudinal study and tracking the progress of the same group five years later, the researchers reapplied the test. When the children were 10 years old, only 30% of them manifested their creative genius. When tested at 15 years of age, the number was reduced to 12%. And when evaluated after adulthood, in their 30s, less than 2% of them remained in the group.

The test, despite having been applied several times, continued to yield the same alarming results, indicating that creativity was actually lost throughout life, a process that began in the period when children were of school age and intensified. as they got older.

Faced with this finding, people may believe that creativity cannot be recovered, but like the other skills we have acquired throughout life, creativity also depends on constant practice to develop, because regardless of age, it does not manifest itself. only in works of artistic nature, but also plays a fundamental role in the most diverse tasks.

The art of cultivating creativity

Japanese writer and translator Haruki Murakami has a very close relationship with music - more specifically jazz. The author believes that it was precisely this genuine interest, so intense in his life, that enabled him to become a novelist. Throughout his journey, he still watches as he continues to learn to write through music.

That is, even the simplest activities, such as reading, listening to music, drawing or walking, provide the ground for creativity to develop fully and continuously.