Category: Creativity

Creativity is not the exclusive domain of youth.

There are two peaks for creativity across the lifespan, new research finds.

One occurs — as you might imagine — in the mid-20s and a second comes later, in the mid-50s.

At least, these are the ages at which people are most likely to do the work that bags them a Nobel Prize.

Professor Bruce Weinberg, the study’s first author, said:

“Many people believe that creativity is exclusively associated with youth, but it really depends on what kind of creativity you’re talking about.”

The conclusions come from an analysis of Nobel Prize winners in Economics over the years, although Professor Weinberg thinks the results apply to creativity generally.

‘Conceptual’ innovators tended to do their best work in their 20s, the results revealed.

Experimentalists, though, were more likely to get the Nobel Prize for work done in their 50s.

Professor Weinberg said:

“Whether you hit your creative peak early or late in your career depends on whether you have a conceptual or experimental approach.”

The probable reason is that being new to a field helps conceptualists, because they are not yet bogged down with accepted views.

Experimentalists, though, need time to accumulate their findings, digging slowly, layer after layer, until they unearth the mother lode.

The same is likely true for other areas of creativity outside the sciences.

Breakthrough ideas are more likely to come from the young, but older people have more time to perfect their art.

Creative peak

Other studies have compared different disciplines to look for creative peaks.

These have generally found that scientific creativity peaks in people’s mid-30s to early 40s.

Professor Weinberg said:

“These studies attribute differences in creative peaks to the nature of the scientific fields themselves, not to the scientists doing the work.

Our research suggests than when you’re most creative is less a product of the scientific field that you’re in and is more about how you approach the work you do.”

The study was published in the journal De Economist (Weinberg & Galenson, 2019).

It can enhance mental flexibility.

Creativity can be unlocked by ‘microdoses’ of psychedelics, new research suggests.

Taking very small amounts of psychoactive substances, like magic mushrooms or truffles — known as ‘microdosing’ — is thought to avoid the ‘bad trip’, but still provide creative benefits.

Microdosing has become fashionable among Silicon Valley workers and others looking for a creative boost.

Now, the first study of the phenomenon suggests microdosing might be effective.

The study involved giving 36 people a microdose of psychedelic truffles (0.37g).

They were then given tests of creativity and intelligence.

The results showed that people were more creative after consuming the microdose of truffles.

Ms Luisa Prochazkova, the study’s first author, said:

“Taken together, our results suggest that consuming a microdose of truffles allowed participants to create more out-of-the-box alternative solutions for a problem, thus providing preliminary support for the assumption that microdosing improves divergent thinking.

Moreover, we also observed an improvement in convergent thinking, that is, increased performance on a task that requires the convergence on one single correct or best solution.”

However, the microdose did not affect their intelligence or analytical abilities.

Ms Prochazkova said:

“Apart from its benefits as a potential cognitive enhancement technique, microdosing could be further investigated for its therapeutic efficacy to help individuals who suffer from rigid thought patterns or behavior such as individuals with depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

However, note that the study had no control group, so the results could be down to expectations: what’s usually called the placebo effect.

In other words, it is possible people believed they were going to be more creative after microdosing, and so they were.

The study was published in the journal Psychopharmacology (Prochazkova et al., 2018).