Original Ideas People Simonton Hurt Creative Means Things

Why are some people more "creative" (able to think of new and original ideas) than others? Psychologists have "sought" (looked for) an answer to this question for many years, with some interesting "hypotheses" (guesses; theories). Dean Keith Simonton at the University of California, Davis, is well known "in the world of" (field of; area of) psychology as the "leading" (one of the top or best) researchers in this area. Simonton has identified several "factors" (influences; items) that may influence creativity. Here are some of those, "categorized" (classified) by whether they help or "hinder" (hurt) creativity:

Help: Being born last in the family. Younger members of the family will get to see different kinds of "role models" (people whose actions and ideas you may want to imitate) and are "exposed to" (experience) family conflicts and how they are resolved. These experiences can "fuel" (increase) original thinking.

Hurt: Being born first in the family. First-born children are more likely to think in "conventional ways" (traditional or commonly accepted ways).

Help: Taking time off. Taking a break from your work allows your ideas to "incubate" (develop slowly without interruptions) and gives original ideas a chance to grow.

Hurt: Resistance to change. People who don't want to change are almost "by definition" (by that very fact) people who cannot be very creative, since being creative means doing something original and that hasn't been done before. Interestingly enough, Simonton found that those who too easily give up on an idea are also less creative. Sometimes we need to continue with an idea even though some of our ideas fail.

Help: Freedom to take risks. It's hard to be creative if your boss won't ever let you do anything different. Being able to work on a "variety of" (mixture of; different) things can help you think in different ways, and "thereby" (because of that fact) be more creative.

Hurt: Pressure to play it safe. To play it safe means to never take any risks, to always do things that have no possible danger involved. Again, almost by definition, this is something that will make you a less creative person, since creativity means sometimes doing things that might fail or even hurt your chances in the future.