Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind

Book Notes
  • The ability to adapt to changing circumstances with fluidity and flexibility is feledected in three main “super factors” of peroanlity that are highly correlated with creativity: plasticit,y divergence, and convergence.  Plasticity is characterized by the tendency to explore and engage with novel idea,s objects, and secnarios.  Characteristics like openness, high energy, and inspiration are related to this drive for exploration.  Dievergence reflect a nonconformist midns et and indepent thinking and is related to impuslviity and lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness.  Finally, convergence refers to the ability to confomrt, put int eh ahrd effort necessary to exercise practicality, and make ideas tenable.  Convergence consists of hig consciteniousness, precision, persistence, critical sense, and sensitivity to the audience (1) – page xxv
  • Initially, createive people resemble a state of flow, or complete absorption in the task.  The imagination and salience networks are highly active, while the focused executive attention network is quiet.  As they hone and refine their work or engage in collaboration, the executive attention network becomes increasingly more active (2) – page xxix intro
  • Those who are more motivated to develop a final product tend to sore lower in creative potential and higher in stress… Those who derive enjoyment from the act of creating and feel in cotronl of the process tend ot show greater creativity than those focused exclusively on the outcome of their work (3) – page xxxi intro
  • In schools, encourginag pretend games either in the curriculum or at recess can ehnahcen imaginativeness and curiosity (4) – page 6 1
  • The college students who pretended they were excited children gave more creative response on a test of divergent thinking (5) – page 11 1
  • Unlike harmoniously passionate people, obsessively passionate people are less motivated by a love of their work and tend to feel as they are not in control of their passions.  They feel constant pressure to outperofmr others and are motivatd by external rewards rather than inner inclinations…  The shade of one’s passion colors the entire journey of creative achievement… The obsessively passionate road involves avoiding hcallenges that oucld lead to further growth.  This road tends to be marked by lower levsl of vitality, positive emotins, and enjoyment (6) – page 21 2
  • People who enjoy a high frequency and intensity of inspiration in their lives tend to be more open to new experiences and report feeling greater absopriton and flow in thieir ativities (7) – page 24 2
  • People who are harmoniously passionate about their activity are more likely to set a gola to become a mster, which predicts higher levels of deliberate practice… when we feel tha tour work is both emotioannyl interesting and personally meaningful, accomplishing a task is less mentally taxing (8) – page 26 2
  • People with hope tend to create learning goals… those without hope tend to adopt outcome goals, which tend to be more focused on outperforming others (9) – page 28 2
  • Several studies have linked hope with academic avhiemeent, while one study found that those in a hopeful state came up with more original ideas and associations (10) – page 28 2
  • Daydreaming, imagination, and fantasy are related to creativity, storytelling, and the ability to delay gratification (11) – page 31 3
  • Creative problems can be sovled by walking in naure, thanks to changes in the brain that lead to lower stress (12) – page 41 3?
  • When our mental focus is directed toward the outside wolrd, such as paying attention to a lecture, the executive attention network works in opposition ot the imagination network: when one is activated, the other is suppressed (13) – page 51 4
  • An intervention focused on connecting the current school environment with a metnal vision of one’s fuure self led to better gardes, higher test score,s better attendance, more academic initiative, greater connection to school, and a greaer concern about doing well (14) – page 53 4
  • Insightful problem sovling doesn’t solely draw on knowledge or memory, but also requires the ability yto break out of habitual framing and switch prespectives or thinking strategies (15) – page 72 5
  • At the moment of insight, researchers founda shapr spike in neural activity in the right anterior temporal lobe… This brain area facilitates integration of information across distanc lexical or smenatic relations, allowing solvers to see connections that had previously eldued them    (16) – page 74 5
  • Some people with anterior temporal lobe dementia to the left side of their brain have been found to suddenly display creative and artistic interests (17) – PAGE 74 5
  • 40 percent of subjects who received transcranial direct current stimulation to decrease the excitability of the left antieor temporal lobe while increasing the xcitability of the right anterior lobe were able to solve the “impossible problem”… none of the control group were successful (18) – page 77 5
  • Ten thousand hours is not a rule but an average (19) – page 79 5
  • People differe dramatically in how long it takes them to acquire the knowledge needed to play on the world stage (20) – page 79 5
  • Sheer amount of delibaterate practice did not suffiicenlty explain most of the differences in expert performance (21) – page 79 5
  • Openness to experience is the single biggest predictor of creative achievement (22) – page 83 6
  • There are at least three major forms of cigntive engagement making up the core of openness… Intellecutal engagement is characterized by a searching for truth, love of pborlem solving, and drive ot engage with ideas, whereas affective engagemntn has to do with exploration of the full depths of human emotion and is associated with a preference of using gut feleing, emotions, empaty, and compassion to mae decisions… Those who are high in asethietc engagement ehbit a drive oward exploring fanstasy and art and tend to experience meotinal sborption in beauty.  Intellcutal egnagemnt was associated wth creative achievement in the sciences, while affective and esthetic engagement were linked with artistic creativity (23) – page 83 6
  • The desire to learn and discover seemd t have snificantly more breaing on creative accomplsihments than did cognitive ability… people with high levels of cogniitvi engagement with imagination, emotions, and beauty were more liely ot make significant artistic creative achievmenets than people who were high in IQ or divergent thinking ability.  Intellectual engagement was sometimtes found to be a better predictor of creative achievement than IQ (24) – page 84 6
  • Psychological plasticity is associated with high levels of idea generation, egnagemnet with everyday creative activities, and publicly recognized creative achievement (25) – page 86 6
  • People who are high in openness report dreaing more often and having more vivid dreams (26) – page 87 6
  • One possibility is that dopamine surges into the right hemisphere of the brain support both openness and dreaming (27) – page 87 6
  • Those who have more creative insights show more activation in the brain’s right hemisphere (28) – page 87 6
  • Among people high in openness, the brain’s dopamine systems are working day and night to inspire creative insights (29) – page 87 6
  • Latent inhibition is a filtering mechanism in the rbain that determines whether we respond to an object tin our evnirment with wonder and novelty, no matter how many times we’ve seen it before and tagged it as irrelevant… Eminent creative achievers were found to be seven times more likely to have a reduced latent inhibition – meaning that they had a harder tiem filtering out seemingly irrelevant information than others (30) – page 87 6
  • People with a leaky sensory filter – meaning that their brains don’t filter out as much irrelevant infrmoion form the enivnorment – tend ot be more creative than those with stronger sensory gating (31) – page 88 6
  • Dopamine systems in highly creative adults are similar in certain ways to those with schizophrenia.  IN both cases, there was a lower desnity odf dopamine d2 receptors in the thalamus – a brain area associated with sensory perception and motor function, which als oplys an important role in creative thought, suggesting a possible link between creativity and psyhopathology (32) – page 89 6
  • The relatives of people with full-blown schizophrenia tend to have unsually creative jobs and hobbies compared to the general population (33) – page 90 6
  • The siblings of patients with autism and the first degree relatiesv of patients with schizophrenia are signicaintly overrepresented in scientific and arsistic occupations (34) – page 90 6
  • Those who asid they experienced more flow during the creative process were also higher in schizotype and openness to experience… The researchers link their findings to latent inhibition, arugign that a leaky sensory filter is a common thread running through schizotype, openness sto experience, flow, and absorption… an exceptionally alrge amount fo information enters their field of awareness and is explored by the mind (35) – page 91 6
  • Mental processes on the schizotype spectrum may interact with protective mental qualities like intellectual cirospoty, working memory, and cognitive flexibility… The most creative thinkienrs were those who were able to simultanesouly sue their executive attention resources to engage in an effortful memory task while continuing to keep rbain activity from their imagination network active (36) – page 92 6
  • Any life experience – whether traumatic or ecstatic – that diversifies our repoertoiser of experiences and pushes us outside o habitual thought patterns can lead to enhanced cognitive flexibility and creativity…  Those who experienced a strange virtual reality exhibited more flexibility (37) – page 93 6
  • Periods of immigration have preced periods of extraordinary creative achievement in various cultural contexts (38) – page 94 6
  • Living in and adapting to foreign cultures may also enhance integrative complexity, which can boost creative thought (39) – page 95 6
  • The greatest innovations occur when the wisdom of one discipline is brought into antoher, seemingly unrelated one… the most successful opera compsoers mix genres in their opera compsotions (40) – page 96 6
  • Highyl creative scientists tend to engage in a large number of loosely related activites forming a baroad network of entpreises.  They tend to have creative hobbies and interests outside of the sciences (41) – page 96 6
  • Disclosing information about ousreslves on Facebook activates major rewar  curicuits in the brain (42) – page 110 7
  • Hearing your phone vibrate can significantly disrupt your focus (43) – page 110 7
  • High levels of media multitasking have been linked with reduced density in the ACC (44) – page 113 7
  • Increased activity in the ACC and the ventromedial prefonrtal cortex has been implicated in the reduction of anxiety (45) – page 113 7
  • The more emotionally senstitive the students, the faster they were able to detec the changes between two similar pictures (46) – page 132-133 8
  • People scoring high on emotional sensitviy displayed greater reactions to photos of happy and sad faces compared to neutral faces… they also reacted more to a spouse’s happy or sad facial expressions, compared to strangers with the same expressions (47) – page 132-133 8
  • In positive, supportive environments, a chidl’s reactivity an sensitivity to stimuli can promote intellectual curiosity and exceiment about learning, and contribute to more positive feeligns toward teachers and mentors.  But when sensitivity intersects with a negative dhilhdood enivonrment, it can conitrbut eot negative meotions, depression, and inhibition of behavior (48) – page 134 8?
  • Emotional sensitivity/reactivity is a form of enhanced biolgocail sensitivity to context, wich ahs been favored by natural selction because of the benefits across many differen enrinoments (49) – page 134 8?
  • Some of the genes that are asooicated with psychological cahllenges – incldung depression, anxiety, and inability to focus – are also associated with resources that can help us flourish, including intellectual curiosity, positive emtoins, and the ability o regulate our emotins (50) – page 135 8
  • Up to 70 percent of trauma survivors report some form of psychological growth (51) – page 149 9?
  • Experiences of trauma commonly result in increased empathy and altruism, and motivation to act in the interest of the good of others (52) – page 152 9
  • IN many instances, leading reseachers enoucntered resitsance from the scientific community and science journal editors in reference to manusrupts that would later earn them the Nobel prize (53) – page 168 10
  • Those who conformed to an incorrect group opinion showed brain activity in areas related to perception (54) – page 174 10?
  • Teaching methods that involve direct instruction – those in which the child is shown what to do rather than given the chance to figure it out for herself – can hamper the hcild’s ability yto sovle problems idnependlty and creatively and amy instead encourage mindless imitation (55) – page 174 10?
  • Creative students tend not to be favored by students…  While teachers said they liked creative students, they somewhat bafflingly defiend creativy using terms like “well behaved” and “conforming” (56) – page 175 10?
  • Systetmatic analyses of the career trajectories of epopel labled geniuses show that their ptut tends to be highly uneven, with a few good ideas mixed in with many more false starts (57) – page 178 10
  • True innovation requires that creators engae in a sort of Darwinian process in whci they try out many possibilitesi without fully knowing what their eventual public reception will be (58) – page 178 10
  • The quality of creative ideas is a positive function of quantity: the more rieads creators generate, the greater the changes they would produce an eventual masterpiece (59) – page 179 10
  • Studying abroad increased creativity (60) – page 182 10?
  • Unconventional behavior on the part of grou pleaders facilitates more creative group output… Creativity is infectionious (61) – page 185

References

  1. Toward an integrative model of creativity and personality heoretical sugestions and preliminary empircal testing
  2. Default and executive network coupling supports creative idea production, Nueral substrates of spontaneous msucial performance an fmri study of jazz improvizations, Nueral correlates of lyircal improvisation: an fmri study of freestyle rap, The neuroscience of msuical improvisation, Generating original ideas the neural unN/Ainning of orignialtiy, Brain activity and connectivity during peotry composition toward a multidmeinisonal mdoel fo the creative process
  3. A correlational study of creativity happienss motivation and stress form creative pursuits
  4. Play in the preschool classroom its socioemotional significance and the teahcer’s role in play
  5. Child’s play facilitaitng the originality of creative output by a priming manipulation
  6. Les passions de l’ame on obsessive adn harmonious passion, On the role of passion in performance, Passion and performance attainment in sport, When pasion elads to excellence the case of musiciancs
  7. Inspiration as a psychological construct
  8. The role of interest in optimizing perfomrance and self-regulation
  9. A hierarchical model of appraoch and avoidance achivment motivation
  10. Hope but not optimism predicts academic perfmance of law students beyond preivous academic avhiement, THe hope construct iwll and ays their relations iwth self effeicacy optimisn amd genral well being, Hope uniquely predicts objectiev academic achievmeent above intellignece, personality, and preivous aacdemic avhiement, Role of hope in admeic and psort achievmeent, Hope and acdemic success in college
  11. Delayed gratification and ego develop,ent imp;ciations for clinical and experimental researhc, Imagingaiton and waiting ability in young children, Correlates of daydreamimng a dimension of self aareness, A factor analytic study of daydreaming and conceptually related cognitive and personality variables
  12. A guide to increased creativity in research inspriation or prespeiration, Give you rideas some legs the postivie effect of wlaking on creative thinking, The urban brain analysinhg outoduur physial activity with mobile eeg?
  13. The human brain is intrinsically organized into dnyamic anticorrelated functional networks, The default network and self gerenated thought component processes dynamic contrla nd clincal relevance
  14. Possible selves and academic outomces how and when possibel sleves impel action , Possible sleves as roadmpas
  15. The nature of restructuring in insight an individual differences apporach, Working memeory demands in insgiht versus anlyitc problem solving, Differentiating insgiht from non sinsight problems, Exectuvie functions in insight versus no ninishgt problems olving an andivdual differences apporach, Differensc in working emeomry invovelemtn in analytical and creative taska n erp study
  16. Neural activity when peopel solve verbal problems with insight
  17. Emergence of artistic talent in forntotemporal dementia
  18. The role of left versus right anterior tmeporal loes in onceptual knowledge an ale meta analyiss of 97 functional neuromiaging studies
  19. Training history deliberate practice and elite sports perofmrance an analysis in resposne to tucker and collins review what makes champions
  20. Career landmars in science individual differences and interndisciplianry contrasts, emergence and realziation of genius the lifes and works of 120 classical composers, Leaders of americna psyhcology 1879-1967 career devleopment creative ouptut and professional achievmeent, Creative productiviy a predictive and explantory model of career trajectories and landmarks, Talend and its devleopemtn an emergneic and epgientic model
  21. Deliberate practice and eprofmrance in msuic games psorts educaiton and professions a meta analysis
  22. Opening up opness to experience a four factor model and relations to creative achievment in the arts adn asciences, Opennes sot experience and intelleect differentially predict creative achievment in thea rts and sciences, Creativty intellgience and persoanltiy a critical review of the scattered literature, A metanaalyis of personaltiy in scientific and artistic dcreativy, Is creativity domain speciic latent class models of cratei accomplishments and create self descriptions
  23. Opening up opness to experience a four factor model and relations to creative achievment in the arts adn asciences
  24. Opening up opness to experience a four factor model and relations to creative achievment in the arts adn asciences
  25. Openness to experience plasticity and creativity exploring loweer order high order and interative effects, Toward an integartive model of creativity and personality hteoretical suggestions and preliminary emprical testing
  26. To dream perhcance to remember individual differenscs in dream recall
  27. Magical ideation modualtes spatial behavior
  28. Sleep inspires insight
  29. From madness to genius the opennes sintelelct trait domain as a paradoxial simplex
  30. Decreasd latent inhibiton is associated with increased creative achievment in high functioning individuals
  31. Creativtiy and snesory gating indexe by the p50 selcetive versus leaky snseoy gating in divergent thinkiers and creative achievers
  32. Thinking outside a less intac tbox thalamand dopamine d2 receprot densities are negatively related to psychometric creativt yin healthy indivudals, The genetics o creativity a serendpitous assmeblance of madess
  33. Genetic associaotn o giftendess and creativty with schizophrenia, Cretivty in offsprin of chizophrenic and contlr parents an adopiton study
  34. Mental illness usicde and creativity 40 year presopecitve total population study
  35. Relating schizotype and personality ot the phenomenology of creativity
  36. Creativity and psycvhopathology a sherade uvlernability model, Failing to deacivte the assocation between brain activity duirn a working meemory task and creativity
  37. Diversifying experiences enhances congivniteiv flexbility, Psychopatholgoy adversiy and creativity diversifyinvg epxeirnesces in teh dveloipment of eminent african americnas
  38. Foreign infleucne and natioanl chievmeent ithe impact of oipem milieus on japanese civilization
  39. Getting the msot out of living abarod biculturalism and integrative copmeplxity as eky drivers of creative and professional success
  40. Creative development as acruiwered expertise therotical issues and an empricial test
  41. Correlation between avocations scientifc style work habits and professional impact of scientists, Arts foster scinetific success avocations of nbel national acdemy royal soceity and sigma xi members
  42. Disclosing infomration about he self is instricially rewarding
  43. The attentioanl cost of receiving a cell phone notificaiton
  44. Higher media multitasking activit is associated with smaller gray matter density in the anerio cingulate cortex
  45. Neural correlates fo midnfulness meditaiton related anxiety relief
  46. The trait of sensory processing sensitivty and neural responses to change in visual scences
  47. Association of snesory processing senitivy wen perceivng positive nad negative emotinal states
  48. Sensory processing sensitivty?
  49. Biological senstivity to context?
  50. Cumulative gtnetic plasticity parenting and adolsecnet self regulation, A novel differneitl asuceptbility gene chrna4 and moderation fo the effect of maltreamtent on child personality, Biolgoical sensitivty to context an eovluioanry devleopmental theory of hte rigins and functions of stress reactivity, Biological sensitivty to context ii empical eplxoraiotns of an evolutioarny devleopemtnal theory, The nature adn ure of placisiticy in early human devellopment, For better and for worse differential susceptbility to enivnormental infleunces
  51. Positive change following trauama and adversity a review?
  52. Altrusim bor of suffering the roots of caring and helping after victimizationa dn other trauma
  53. Rejecting and resisting nobel class discoveries acocunts by nobel laureates
  54. Neurbiological correaltes of social conformity and independence durin gmnetal rotation?
  55. Children’s imitation of causal action sequences is infleunced by statistcal and pedagogical evidence?
  56. Creativy asset or burden in the classroom?
  57. The genius portfiol how do poets earn their creative reptuations from multiple products, Cerative productiviy a predictive and explanory mdoel of careetr trajectories and landmarks
  58. Creative thought as blind vairaiton and selcive retention combinatorial mdoels of exceptional creativity
  59. Creativity and dsicovery as blind variation campbells bvsr model aft erht eh half cenutry mark, So we meet aga in replies to gabora and weisberg
  60. On the cogniitive benefits of cultural expeirencfe eplxirn th relationship between studying abroad and creative thikng?
  61. Leading for creativity the role of iunconvetional leader behavior