Why Divergent + Convergent Thinking = the Bees Knees of the Creative Process
Article Published for The Vital Creative Collection — Written by Casey Balon
Photo by The Tonik
Contrary to mainstream belief, masterful artists are using both sides of their brain.
We’ve all heard people refer to themselves as “right-brained” (traditionally known as the part of the brain responsible for intuitive feeling and holistic processing) or “left-brained” (responsible for sequencing, language, and logical thought), but the most extraordinary creatives know how to enlist their whole brain and apply multiple methods of thinking.
Wendy Suzuki, popular Professor of Neuroscience & Psychology at the New York University Center for Neural Science, explains that the most creative people engage both sides of the brain, with “as much crosstalk [as] possible between all parts”.
This opens up the question: What type of thinking truly fuels the creative process?
One way to approach answering this is through the lens of convergent and divergent methods.
In 1956, the psychologist Joy Paul Guilford formulated the two, seemingly contrasting, cognitive approaches known as “convergent thinking” and “divergent thinking.”
Convergent thinking refers to focused, systematic, and linear thought that is most often well-defined and solution-oriented, while a divergent approach is innovative, fresh, and tends to generate multiple new possibilities that expand past the realm of our more familiar understandings.
Typecasting Our Brains Limits Us
While “left-brained individuals” are often associated with being strong at convergent thinking and “right-brained individuals” are correlated with divergent thinking, this type of broad-spectrum categorization is quite limiting.
It goes without saying that each of us is incredibly unique in our range of capabilities. Our neurological capacities are shaped by a myriad of influences such as epigenetic factors, pre and perinatal health, nutrition, early childhood experiences, choices, opportunities, as well as our cultural and generational beliefs.
When we categorize people as being either “artistic and imaginative” or “straight-forward and logical”, we are attempting to distill someone’s neuro capacity down to a small subset of their actual potential. Suggesting someone could only hold proficiency in one type of cognitive function is short-sighted and does not accurately represent what is going on inside a person’s brain during the various phases of an artistic venture.
It’s so much more nuanced than that.
Implementing a Multi-Faceted Approach
To best serve a creative endeavor, it’s not about choosing one way over another.
It’s about:
1) Learning how and when to harness each type of thinking throughout the creative cycle.
2) Being able to skillfully (or instinctively) decipher what is needed in each moment of the process.
3) Giving yourself the space to shift from one mode to another.
4) Identifying practices and environments that help you transition into the next state.
5) Being willing and courageous enough to weave, or even blend, different types of thinking when appropriate.
In other words, it is incredibly advantageous to be able to generate novel ideas, diversify, and branch out through unique trains of thought (divergent qualities) as well as be able to refine, distil, extract, and work with these ideas (convergent qualities).
For example, when it comes to people who are clever at ‘wordsmithing’, language itself engages the left side of their brain, while the right side of their brain allows them to lace, move, and connect their words in remarkable ways.
Multiple forms of thought—and extensive brain capacity—are not only valuable but crucial for the full arc of creative development.
Of course talent and gifted wordsmithing are somewhat subjective notions, but that is a conversation for another day.
Let’s Talk More About the Brain
Numerous brain functions and structures are recruited in the creative process.
The areas of the brain necessary for convergent thinking during creative performance are the hippocampus, rostrolateral prefrontal cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
A study carried out by Hikaru et al. in 2020 suggests that there is a unique association of convergent thinking with white matter structures.
When it comes to divergent thinking, it appears that the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex are engaged during this portion of creative performance.
A study published by Oxford Academic carried out by Liang et al. (also in the year 2020) provided the first evidence of regional brain activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus and left middle temporal gyrus during divergent thinking. The study focused on the dimensions of fluency, flexibility, and originality. It suggested that highly creative people have more flexible semantic associative networks, which means they can easily connect and understand related sets of concepts and ideas.
*For all my brilliant ‘brain nerds’ out there, I know the above explanation is lacking intricacy and nuance, as well as neurophysiological details… but we’re going to dive deeper in future pieces together.
Looping Back
I’m going to take a few steps back and risk sounding like a bit of hypocrite as I acknowledge that some individuals are obviously more prolific at thinking in big picture, visionary, web-like ways (aka divergent thinking) while others excel exceedingly well at executive functioning skills and solving problems logically… but that doesn’t mean that the innovative visionaries—or visionary imagination—can exist in a silo. As in most matters, we really do require both convergence and divergence for creativity to flourish.
While the majority of highly creative people are engaging in both types of thinking, some people are not able to effectively implement one or the other. In these cases, it can be helpful to have other members of the creative team bring those missing elements to the table.
The Art & Science of Thought Application
Notes about applying a divergent method inside the creative process:
most valuable in discovery and developmental phases
characterized by free-flowing, uninhibited, and nonlinear idea creation
bridges multiple perspectives and a vast array of possibilities to generate new solutions and opportunities
invokes imagination, innovation, novelty, and originality
makes unique and intelligent connections between related concepts (often expands in a web-like fashion)
energy-rich and prolific in nature (quantity is prioritized)
could be described as “gathering creative assets” ™
Notes about applying a convergent method inside the creative process:
most valuable in phases of refinement, evaluation, decision making, and delivery
used to filter through the web of ideas, explore how to optimize or mold them, and discern which solutions are of highest quality
project management in a nutshell: test and trial ideas, arrange them into a workable fashion, and put them in motion
helps distinguish the plan of action for the idea and can answer the questions “who,” “what,” “where,” and “when”
can be referred to as executive functioning skills—including, but not limited to, initiating an action step, maintaining attention on the artistic process, following through to completion, self-leadership while creating, being able to moderate incoming stressors (without being completely distracted), having a healthy relationship with impulse control, and the ability to be adaptable when appropriate
Practice Can Enhance Capacity, Especially When It Comes to Creative Thinking
Sometimes the purpose of creativity is the experience itself and no outcome is needed or desired. In general, though, free-form ideation (which is divergent thinking without a method of delivering those ideas) is not going to produce a powerful form of creative expression.
I would even dare to say that, in order to properly facilitate and respect the existence of our novel ideas, we are somewhat responsible for finding a way to extract and generate an opportunity for our favorite ones to come to fruition.
Conversely, without the principles of novelty or originality, our lives and creativity would be stagnant and lackluster.
It takes practice to restore, strengthen, and develop new neural pathways. This applies to creativity as deeply as it applies to other aspects of our life. Practicing these ways of thinking can help us to infuse both divergent and convergent approaches into our artistry, which can open up the possibility for us to develop an entirely new relationship with our creative process.
A Closing Note
Ultimately, our ability to think is most effective when we have already tended to our foundational needs. Sleep, hydration, relational health, mental clarity, spiritual wellness, and physical vitality all intertwine to support our neuro capacities.
I hope this piece helps you in some way to understand how different types of thinking can contribute to your creative development.
As well-known Stanford Neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman has said,
“You can’t break rules you don’t understand.”
-Casey Balon, BSc. Pharmacy and BSc. Physiology & Pharmacology
Sources Cited:
1) Hikaru et al. Convergent creative thinking performance is associated with white matter structures: Evidence from a large sample study. NeuroImage. 2020 April 15; Volume 210. Elsevier. doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116577.
2) Shi L, Beaty RE, Chen Q, Sun J, Wei D, Yang W, Qiu J. Brain Entropy is Associated with Divergent Thinking. Cereb Cortex. 2020 Mar 21;30(2):708-717. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhz120. PMID: 31233102.
