Do you think children are more creative than us? A study claims the opposite: our ideas are more original, but little ones have more fun creating them.
Point blank question: are children or adults more creative? You probably answered the children. Well, you’re wrong: according to a study published in PLOS One adults would be more creative and imaginative than 3-5 year olds, but anxious and lacking in self-confidence. As the authors explain, «the idea that children are more creative than adults is too simplistic. Adults have more original and effective ideas, but preschool children are more self-confident, more motivated and have more fun doing creative tasks.”
Invent and draw
The research involved 92 children aged 3 to 5 years and 70 adults, most between 20 and 30 years of age. The task was the same for everyone − complete three creative activities: first, find as many creative uses for a can in three minutes; the second, draw freely for eight minutes; the last one, inventing and drawing a fantastic animal for eight minutes. After completing the test, participants were asked to reflect on their self-confidence, anxiety and how much fun they had taking it.
The works were examined by a series of raters who did not know who created them: in all three tasks, the adults’ works were objectively rated as more effective, innovative and creative than those of the children. Subjectively, however, the children did much better: they enjoyed taking the tests more, reporting greater motivation and less anxiety than the adults.
Real and perceived creativity
The study also shows that we adults feel less creative than children: over three quarters of adults said they were convinced that the children had received a higher creativity score than their own. Children, in fact, engage in creative activities much more frequently than adults – about once a day versus once a week.
In the common imagination, childhood is the time of play and imagination, while adulthood is overwhelmed by duties and work: science has made us discover, however, that creativity does not fade at all with age, but rather it is (sometimes) enthusiasm that fades.
