The contributions of convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and schizotypy to solving insight and non-insight problems

ABSTRACT

The ability to generate diverse ideas (divergent thinking) is valuable in solving creative problems (e.g., insight problems); yet, however advantageous, this ability is insufficient to solve the problem alone and requires the ability to logically deduce an assessment of correctness of each solution (convergent thinking). Positive schizotypy may help isolate the aspects of divergent thinking prevalent in insight problem solving. Participants were presented with a measure of schizotypy (Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences), divergent and convergent thinking tasks, insight problems, and non-insight problems. We found no evidence for a relationship between schizotypy and insight problem solving. Relationships between divergent thinking and insight problem solving were also surprisingly weak; however, measures of convergent thinking had a stronger relationship with problem solving. These results suggest that convergent thinking is more important than divergent thinking in problem solving.

KEYWORDS:

• Insight problem solving
• convergent thinking
• divergent thinking
• schizotypy
• creativity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Spiral staircases provided that aha! sensation of revelatory confirmation for Watson during the discovery of the helical structure of DNA (Watson, 1968, p. 16).

² Compound Remote Associates (CRAs; Bowden & Jung-Beeman, 2003) are a variant of the Remote Associates Task (Mednick & Mednick, 1967) in which three words are presented to the participant (e.g., age, mile, sand) with the task being to find the fourth word that meaningfully relates to the others (stone-age, milestone, sandstone). In the Remote Associates Task, participants have to generate a word linking three concepts, but the solutions are not necessarily compounds.

³ The dimensions of the SPQ are positive, negative and disorganised schizotypy, whereas the O-LIFE is measured along four dimensions: Unusual Experiences, Social Anhedonia, Cognitive Disorganisation and Impulsive Non-conformity (Mason & Claridge, 2006). In the O-LIFE, positive schizotypy is a combination of the Unusual Experiences and Cognitive Disorganisation dimensions.