Divergent Versus Convergent Thinking

Synonyms

Creativity versus intelligence; Innovation versus critical thinking; Intuitive thinking versus logic thinking; Irrational versus rational thinking

Key Concepts and Definition of Terms

The concept of divergent and convergent thinking was created by J.P. Guilford to term different types of psychological operations while problem solving. Divergent thinking is defined as producing a diverse assortment of appropriate responses to an open-ended question or task in which the product is not completely determined by the information. So, divergent thinking concentrates on generating a large number of alternative responses including original, unexpected, or unusual ideas. Thus, divergent thinking is associated with creativity.

Convergent thinking involves finding only the single correct answer, conventional to a well-defined problem. Many facts or ideas are examined while convergent thinking for their logical validity or in which a set of rules is followed. Convergent thinking focuses on reaching a problem solution through the recognition and expression of preestablished criteria. Standard intelligence tests are similarly believed to measure convergent thinking.

Theoretical Background and Open-Ended Issues

The differences between convergent and divergent thinking in information processes, psychological operations, and brain activity are presented in Table 1 and in Figs. 1, 2.

Divergent Versus Convergent Thinking, Table 1 Differences in characteristics associated with convergent and divergent thinking

Divergent Versus Convergent Thinking, Fig. 1

Scheme of organization of convergent (a) versus divergent (b) thinking. F1…I, D1…I, and p1…i sign different semantic categories in multiple knowledge structures

Divergent Versus Convergent Thinking, Fig. 2

Model of hemispheric organization of convergent (a) versus divergent (b) thinking

Three basic indices of divergent thinking have been offered of Guilford:

• Fluency (total number of the generated ideas)

• Flexibility (the number of categories in the ideas)

• Originality (the number of unique or unusual ideas)

Effectiveness of divergent thinking suggests a combination of knowledge, good memory, and fluency in associations between sensory and semantic information, as well as richness of ideas, imagination, and fantasy.

The basic index of successful convergent thinking is high speed of the right answer finding. The same condition is due to measurement of mental abilities or well-known intelligence quotient (IQ). Intelligence, as measured on many commonly used tests, is often separated into verbal, figural, and numerical, which can be combined to produce a full-scale intelligence score. Also social, emotional, motor, and other components of intelligence are differentiated. Successful convergent thinking required a perceptual exactness in observation, great volume of general and domain-specific knowledge, good memory, analytic-abstract reasoning, and finally fast acceptance of the logical decision.

So, main contrary characteristics of convergent and divergent thinking are a quantity of task solution (simple vs. multiple, respectively), time of answer finding (short vs. long), and concept mapping of idea search (specific vs. widespread associations). However, convergent and divergent thinking have also some similarity characteristic in psychological processes while difficult problem solving as it presented in Table 2. These different types of thinking are important components of creative process including the formulation of a problem (dominance of convergent thinking), widespread search of variable ideas of a problem solution (function of divergent thinking), and choice of the final decision based on critical comparison of generated ideas (again convergent thinking phase). So, convergent thinking dominates while domain-relevant knowledge and data are identified and analyzed but divergent thinking – during information transformation and generation of both ideas collection and many possible criteria for reviewing these ideas.

Divergent Versus Convergent Thinking, Table 2 Similarities in characteristics associated with convergent and divergent thinking

Organization of Divergent Versus Convergent Thinking

Semantic transformations of information and ideas exploring as well as one important source of wit and humor are evidence of divergent thinking. Associational knowledge reflects regularities in experience based on probabilistic linkages among stimuli. Traditionally, associational knowledge has been held to give rise to new original thought through variable interconnections of remote concepts (see Fig. 1b). Extensive knowledge provides an information basis for flexible search of different and similar features of objects and processes from various semantic categories that contributed to the generation of many new concepts and creative problem solutions. A heuristic or insight is a strategy that ignores part of the information, with the goal of making creative decisions after incubation period.

On the contrary, convergent thinking is defined as creating of completely determined product. Linear logic, schematic knowledge, and mapping operations are contributed to arrive at a firm conclusion based on relevant information. The theory of mental models is widely accepted as the explaining theory in relational reasoning (e.g., Goodwin and Johnson-Laird 2005). In line with this theory, humans construct internal representation of objects and relations in working memory, matching the state of affairs given in the premises. Convergent thinking narrows the available responses with the goal of selecting the single correct response (Fig. 1a) and can inhibit creative though as stops on one most probable idea.

However, as the stage model predicts, sometimes, convergent thinking may be necessary for final selection of original and acceptable problem solution. Two complementary subsystems are required to reach the desirable results: (1) an idea generation subsystem that embeds semantic knowledge and whose dynamics generates ideas as conceptual combinations and (2) a critic, which receives the generated ideas and produces evaluative feedback based on its domain knowledge about the given context.

Involvement of multiple knowledge structures, the capability to memorize which answers and categories have been produced, as well as the accessibility of memory traces in general should be helpful in acquiring both high creativity and intelligence test scores. The large variety of data resulting in an average correlation between divergent thinking and intelligence tests has been found using a meta-analysis of 21 studies and 45,880 participants (Kim 2005). This relationship was moderated by age, gender, specific abilities, personality, and other factors. However, patterns of relationships between these factors and the convergent and divergent thinking organization still should be studied.

So, paradoxical complementary combinations of contrary kind of thinking occur in different phases of novelty production: convergent thinking might dominate in the phases of preparation and verification, but divergent thinking in that of illumination.

Neuronal Mechanisms of Divergent and Convergent Thinking

Understanding of neuronal mechanisms of divergent and convergent thinking may not only improve a performance of different cognitive tasks but also provide new insights into regulation of innovation activity. Possible brain correlates underlying divergent and convergent thinking are found in neuroscientific studies. As example of convergent thinking, mathematics operations can be tested.

Neuropsychological as well as brain imaging studies converge on the view that arithmetic processing is subserved by frontoparietal areas and the basal ganglia (Dehaene et al. 1996). The left angular gyrus, perisylvian language areas, and the basal ganglia are assumed to mediate the retrieval of overlearned arithmetic facts, such as the multiplication tables, from long-term memory. The stronger activation within frontal areas in calculation tasks (Fig. 2a) has been interpreted as reflecting working memory demands, as well as error monitoring and strategic organization. There are evidences that numerical information is represented and processed by regions of the prefrontal and posterior parietal lobes, with the intraparietal sulcus as a key node for the representation of the semantic aspect of numerical quantity. The intraparietal region seems to be associated with an abstract, amodal representation of numbers in as much as it can be activated by numbers presented in various culturally learned symbolic notations. Exact arithmetic depends more on left lateralized, possibly language-related structures, while approximate arithmetic is tied to a quantity representation in bilateral intraparietal areas.

Deductive reasoning as variant of convergent thinking is the attempt to reach secure conclusion from prior beliefs, observations, or suppositions. Some reports have characterized deduction as predominantly left hemispheric, variously recruiting regions in inferior frontal, frontotemporal, and occipito-fronto-temporo-parietal cortices (Goel and Dolan 2004). Core deduction area is the left rostro-lateral prefrontal cortex, a region implicated in tasks involving goals/subgoals.

It can be concluded that the specific network involved in skilled arithmetic performance (i.e., convergent thinking) has been established. The inferior parietal sulcus and prefrontal cortex are assumed to mediate a common representation of quantity, and both arithmetic and sentence processing activated large sets of areas strongly lateralized to the left hemisphere (Fig. 2a).

On the contrary, divergent thinking and creativity are associated with widespread interconnections between multiple brain regions and relative dominance of the right hemisphere (Razumnikova 2005; Arden et al. 2010) (see Fig. 2a). A meta-analytic review of the literature to establish how creative thinking relates to hemispheric dominance revealed no difference in predominant right-hemispheric activation for verbal versus figural tasks, holistic versus analytical tasks, and context-dependent versus context-independent tasks (Mihov et al. 2010).

Right-hemisphere dominance in divergent thinking is caused to the facts that the right temporal and parietal cortices may provide a crucial nonlinguistic component needed for the intuitive generation of novel ideas using semantic knowledge in terms of features, concepts, and categories as well as verbal operations, such as the metaphor and humor creation or semantic operations that require a wide net of associations.

Semantic information in the brain is represented at several levels, ranging from combinations of sensorimotor features, through amodal concepts, to semantic categories. Considerable evidence now supports the idea that semantic processing involves several cortical functional networks including the left temporal lobe, the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex, and parts of the occipital cortex. Thus, if great volume of knowledge is necessary for difficult task performance, integration of functions of both hemispheres is required often for a finding of the best decision.

Many investigators have proposed that the ability to generate novel ideas or divergent thinking is associated with increased hemispheric cooperation. In line with this, hypothesis studies of patients with callosal resection have revealed a decrement in complex cognitive ability and EEG coherence studies suggest an association between effectivity of divergent thinking and interhemispheric coupling (Bogen 2000; Razumnikova 2005). Decreased callosal connectivity enhances hemispheric specialization, which benefits the incubation of ideas that are critical phase of creativity, and it is the momentary inhibition of this hemispheric independence that accounts for the illumination (Moore et al. 2009). Alternatively, decreased size of corpus callosum may reflect more specific localization of selective hemispheric processes, thereby facilitating efficient intrahemispheric functional connectivity. So, the corpus callosum is necessary for transferring earlier integrative aspects of divergent thinking from the right hemisphere to the left one, which would be essential for creative output, that is, verbal and motor answer.

The lateralized processing of the different forms and types of knowledge stored in the right and left hemispheres may be particularly important during different types of divergent thinking (verbal, figural, or social). The right hemisphere is dominated at exploring for new possibilities while the left hemisphere is more likely to result in the application of a previously learnt concept or pattern to a new problem.

An important aspect of cognitive fluency and flexibility is inhibitory control, the ability to dynamically modify or cancel planned actions in response to changes in the sensory environment, or task demands. The control and planed functions are performed in the prefrontal cortex which is deactivated during divergent thinking according to divergent task-induced alpha rhythm synchronization (Fig. 2b). This effect can be interpreted as congruent with idea that defocused attention and inhibitory control decrease is associated with effective search of original ideas.

Implication for Theory, Policy, and Practice

Successfulness in both divergent and convergent thinking can be considered within the more comprehensive concept of cognitive competence. This concerns the complex achievement forms of problem perception, information processing through learning transfer, and divergent/convergent thought processes in various situations and in different field of activity. There are findings that generally supported the view of convergent scientists and divergent artists. Scientific eminence requires high level not only intellectual but creative abilities and manifests itself in development of solution-relevant hypotheses regarding scientifically unsolved problems, the development of new theories and methods, and original problem solutions. Creativity is generally expressed, for example, in technical areas through original processes, new methods, useful inventions, and valuable products. Analysis of creativity and intelligence scores with regard to extracurricular activities shown that highly creative versus highly intelligent students dominated in art, literature, technology, and social skills whereas in science these scores were equivalent (Perleth and Sierwald 2001).

According to a neural plasticity model, it is expected that environmental interventions in the different form of training in divergent and convergent thinking would improve both creative and intellectual abilities. Schooling and specific intervention programs do affect relative intellectual or creative performance. A well-known tool to enhance divergent thinking in groups is brainstorming. There are many techniques for individual development of ability to generation of original ideas: challenge facts, analogies, random word and picture, and others.

It should also be noted that the magnitude of the thinking score increase would be a function of the underlying differences in neural plasticity. If there are large individual differences in neural plasticity, then even relatively large interventions would not be sufficient to overcome differences in this factor.

Conclusion and Future Directions

So, divergent thinking concentrates on producing a large number of appropriate and adequate alternative responses and often is associated with creativity which involves the generation of varied, original, or unusual ideas in response to an open-ended task. On the contrary, convergent thinking involves finding the single correct answer, and standard intelligence tests are similarly believed to measure convergent thinking.

A major question for further research is a studying individual variability in complex neuronal mechanism of divergent versus convergent thinking depending on sex, age, personality, intelligence, handedness, etc. It is necessary to unify neuroimaging methods and psychometrical testing of different components of thinking designed to provide greater spatial localization of function in brain. The future of primary creativity research would perhaps be focusing not only on the specialization of the hemispheres but on particular brain areas that are in constant interplay and communication. There is also open-end question on a role of interhemispheric or anterior and posterior cortex interaction in information selection during creative activity. Further research using techniques that can provide information about the nature of white matter connections, such as diffusion tensor imaging, will help to explain the mechanism by which effectivity of divergent thinking relates to size of corpus callosum.

Recently, more and more attention is given to the use of psychological knowledge in the politician and ordinary life. In this connection, studying of functional mechanisms of social creativity or implications of divergent and convergent thinking concepts on work, at home, or in complete adaptation to the world represents a great interest.

Cross-References

Cognition of Creativity

Convergent Versus Divergent Thinking

Creative Brain

Creativity and Systems Thinking

Divergent Thinking

Nature of Creativity

Scientific Creativity as Combinatorial Process