I’ve often observed that my ability to think creatively disappears after spending enough time having the noncreative normal way ground into me.
For example, I remember my first day on a job I noticed a bunch of ways the company was doing things inefficiently and could be better. After doing it the company’s way for a year or two, the company’s system seemed so natural that it didn’t seem like there was anything wrong with it. But when I remembered some of the things I’d told people that first day, they still seemed like good ideas, even though I was no longer able to spontaneously generate them anymore.
Likewise, I think being in a field for a long time etches the paradigm into your brain so deeply that it inhibits your ability to think outside of it.
I think this probably works alongside any changes that might happen simply due to age. I’d like to see a study comparing the creativity of old people who are just joining a new field, versus relatively young people who have been in the field their whole lives.
A lot of people seem to be creative in less technical fields later in life after switching into them from a more technical field in which their creativity had somewhat dried up.
If you’re talking about the creativity that works within a paradigm, then chronological age doesn’t matter—it’s only the amount of time that you’ve spent studying the field that matters. A person who enters a field at 50 shows a similar career trajectory than a person who enters it at 20.
If you’re talking about paradigm-busting creativity, then I’m not aware of other studies that would have made the inside/outside-paradigm distinction. (Which isn’t to say that they might not exist, of course.)
I’ve often observed that my ability to think creatively disappears after spending enough time having the noncreative normal way ground into me.
For example, I remember my first day on a job I noticed a bunch of ways the company was doing things inefficiently and could be better. After doing it the company’s way for a year or two, the company’s system seemed so natural that it didn’t seem like there was anything wrong with it. But when I remembered some of the things I’d told people that first day, they still seemed like good ideas, even though I was no longer able to spontaneously generate them anymore.
Likewise, I think being in a field for a long time etches the paradigm into your brain so deeply that it inhibits your ability to think outside of it.
I think this probably works alongside any changes that might happen simply due to age. I’d like to see a study comparing the creativity of old people who are just joining a new field, versus relatively young people who have been in the field their whole lives.
A lot of people seem to be creative in less technical fields later in life after switching into them from a more technical field in which their creativity had somewhat dried up.
If you’re talking about the creativity that works within a paradigm, then chronological age doesn’t matter—it’s only the amount of time that you’ve spent studying the field that matters. A person who enters a field at 50 shows a similar career trajectory than a person who enters it at 20.
If you’re talking about paradigm-busting creativity, then I’m not aware of other studies that would have made the inside/outside-paradigm distinction. (Which isn’t to say that they might not exist, of course.)