I think at the tender age of 3 yrs when we begin to explore and ask all kinds of questions as to why things are the way they are. We are allowed to say and do all sorts of imaginative things but all of this stops once we get into primary education. 

Many thanks,

Debra

Why is that, Debra?

Exploration is linked with crawling abilities.  As infants begin to crawl, they gain a sense of self.  By learning control over their bodies, infants develop their exploratory play.

I believe that humans, as well as all living things, starts to explore there sorroundings from their first breath. The degree of consciousness affects the level of expression this curiosity may take as well as the impression it leaves in the beholders face.

I find your question as utterly interesting, even from my perspective as a researher within the forensic psychiatric perspective: when do humans quit to be interested in the World around them and how can You as caregiver and/or next of kin get someone eager to explore again instead of stagnate?

Best regards, Pontus

Thank you very much, Pontus.

Steve

Hi Steven.

You ask two questions: (1) At what age do humans start to develop their inventive abilities? (2) What triggers our inventive response?

Answers to your questions greatly depend on the theoretical framework one adopts (e.g., Skinnerian or Piagetian, for example) and one's definition of creativity or inventive responses.

 If, for example, you are a Skinnerian, one’s creative abilities depend on one’s physical and social environment and are related to mechanisms of learning, such as operant conditioning, reinforcement, punishment, and the like. As Skinner put it, the variables of which human and animal behavior is a function lie out there. Accordingly, human inventive abilities do not develop, but they are acquired, maintained and modified via leaning mechanisms. On the contrary, if you are a Piagetian, one’s inventive abilities depend on what Piaget called the three traditional factors of development (i.e., maturation, physical experience, and social experience, including language) but also on developmental psychological processes such one’s power of assimilation, accommodation, equilibration, self-regulation, reflecting abstraction and the like. Accordingly, contrary to Skinner’s views, in a Piagetian framework we are the main responsible for our development and learning

There are several definitions of creativity, for example, that creativity is (a) an act of bringing about new and imaginative ideas into reality; (b) an ability to perceive the world in a new way or manner; and (c) a capacity to find hidden patterns, to establish links between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate new solutions. As I see it, creativity is, above all divergent thinking, that is, one's ability to solve, for example, cognitive problems in a completely different manner from that it used to be the case. A telling example of divergent thinking can be find in the following Karl F., Gauss' (1977-1855) cognitive reasoning, while solving a problem his school teacher had written on the blackboard:. “What is the sum of 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8?” Gauss' answer to this problem left his primary school teacher highly perplex when, at the age of 8 years, he gave a highly creative answer to the above mentioned problem. All of a sudden, and apparently without having time enough to perform the respective operation of adding, Gauss replied that the sum of the arithmetical operation at hand was 36. “Why is this so?” -- the teacher asked again. She became astonished when Gauss replied, “This is so because 4 X 9 = 36”. “I cannot understand” -- the teacher replied:  “Why did you perform an operation of multiplication instead of an addition operation?” “I did that -- Gauss went on -- because I easily realized in my mind that 1+ 8 = 9; “2 +7 = 9; 3 + 6 = 9; and 4 + 5 = 9. Hence, 4 X 9 = 36”. Even if it were given by a non-expert adult in mathematics, we would certainly say that such answer and way of thinking was highly creative and is a clear example of divergent, new, and insightful thinking.

Given that in development nothing begins ex-abrupto or suddenly [see Piaget, J (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. New York: International Universities Press] I wonder whether it makes sense  to ask at what age humans start to develop their inventive abilities. As development is a process of successive differentiation and integration of perspectives, dimensions and the like, all of human capacities, creativity among them, should not be seen in terms of chronology-of-acquisition but in terms of sequence-of-transformation. Note also that age is an indicator not a criterion of development. Suffices it to say that a 6-year-old child can be more developed in cognitive terms, for example, than an 8-year-old child.

I understand the idea that points to the tender age of 3 years, an age at which, mainly because of his/her ability to move from place to place, the child begins to explore the world around him/her, and because of his/her ability to speak relatively well his/her mother tongue, s/he begins to ask all kinds of questions as to why things are the way they are. S/he is allowed to say and do all sorts of imaginative things but all of this stops once s/he gets into primary education. Of course, it is natural to think that when we are capable of locomotion and speaking we are entitled to be more creative than if this were not the case. However, this is not necessarily the case. Suffice it to remember the example of the famous physicist Stephen Hawking. As I said before, because development is a process of successive differentiation and integration, we should look at it in terms of sequence-of-transformation rather than in terms of chronology-of-acquisition, be them cognitive, emotional, prosocial, moral, aesthetical, and so forth.

It is true that the age of 3-4 years is, as it were, the age of the “why questions”. Note, however, that Piaget [See Piaget, J. (1959). Language and though of the child (3rd ed.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul), was able to conceptualize three types of why questions: Psychological or, say, fabulous why questions; physical why questions, and logic why questions. “Why have you beard?" -- a child asks. “Because I like to have beard” -- an adult responds.” “Why do you like to have bear?”, and so forth -- the child adds. These are examples of the first type of why questions As I see it, the child at hand is playing and amusing with words and s/he is not really interested in any (true) explanation. I wonder if these psychological whys can be considered an example of innovative activities on the part of the child.  This type of why questions is highly frequent in young children’s egocentric language.  “Why does water freeze in the fridge?” – an old child may ask. “Because when water is subject to a low temperature it ceases to be liquid and becomes solid" -- an adult answers. This example substantiates a why physical question . “Why 2 + 2 makes 4?" – an old child questions. Two + 2 = 4 because 1 + 1 = 2"--.an adult responds. This is a simple example of a logic why question. Needless to say, physical and logic why questions are much more frequent in the adult’s socialized language than in young children’s egocentric language and speech. Of course good and “irritating” physical and logic why questions require more creativity and invention than psychological why questions.

I also wonder whether when we are allowed to say and do all sorts of imaginative things we are being truly innovators and creators. The example of delirium and the like shows that this is not necessarily the case. However romantic it may be, Rousseau’s idea that education and society end up by stopping all sorts of imaginative things we can say and do does not go without problems. Note that, albeit costly, only education is capable of saving, societies, countries, and even people from collapse, be it violent or gradual. Also, I do not know, for example, of any Nobel laureate without a solid academic background.  

As to what triggers our inventive responses, many books, chapters and paper have been written on such issue. So, my answer is a short answer.

(1) Our inventive responses are more likely to be triggered if we live in appropriate contexts or systems (e.g., microsystem, mesosystem, macrosystem) a la Urie Bronfenbrenner, if we act upon objects and exchange perspectives and viewpoints with others a la Piaget , and if live in an emotional milieu that is not, as it were, an affective desert (see, for this respect, John Bowlby’s books on one’s several types of emotional bonding).

(2) Our inventive responses (ideas, hypotheses, theories, and the like) are so because they are new and contain certain facets, so to say, that go well beyond previous inventive responses (ideas, hypotheses, theories, and the like ideas).  No doubt, heliocentric theory, for example, goes beyond geocentric theory. One might wonder, however, whether heliocentric theory would have been put forth if it were not preceded by geocentric theory. In science, in general, we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before, even when we go well beyond them. As previously noted, nothing in the individual's development begins "ex abrupto" or suddenly, and hence our inventive responses partly rely on the responses of those who have gone before. So, to a certain extent, even though they are inventive, our inventive responses often represent a reformulation and reconstruction of the past. I wonder whether Darwin's evolution theory and responses would have ever been generated if the theory would not have been preceded, for example, by creationist theory. Therefore, no inventive response is totally new and inventive.  

(3) An authoritative atmosphere is to inventive responses as an authoritarian and permissive atmospheres are to conservative, traditional response. Authoritative atmospheres, schools, or families are demanding but warmth; Authoritarian atmospheres, families or schools are demanding, but cold; and permissive environment are guided by the idealistic and romantic  idea of laissez faire, laissez aller, laissez passer, or lets it go.

(4) Inventive responses are mainly triggered by the search for meaning and the unknown.      

(5) Inventive responses are more likely to appear in a person-oriented milieu than in a position-oriented one. Contrary to what happens in position-oriented contexts, in person-oriented contexts, all people should be treated with respect and justice, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, political, religious, or sexual orientation and so forth.

(4) Our inventive responses are often triggered by one, two, or even three types of reasoning: induction, deduction, and abduction. I dispense myself with presenting here a detailed distinction among them. Even so, note that the distinction between deduction, on the one hand, and induction and abduction, on the other, corresponds to the distinction between necessary and non-necessary inferences. In deductive inferences, what is inferred is necessarily true if the premises from which it is inferred are true; that is, the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion. A familiar type of example is inferences instantiating the schema: "All men are mortal. Philosopher Plato is a man. Hence, he is mortal." 

(5) It is canonical or formal history, to say that our inventive responses are triggered when we observe a certain event (e.g., the increasing with age of children’s prosocial behavior), formulate an hypothesis to test it (e.g., a cost-reward hypothesis), design an experimental study appropriate to reject or not to reject the null hypothesis at hand, and analyze the data, mainly in statistical terms, and draw conclusions about the hypotheses at hand. Needless to say, to run an experiment of this type is only at the reach of Piagetian formal operational subjects, not at the reach of a child, however intelligent s/he may be.

(6) But we can come up with inventive responses (ideas and theories) from a non-canonical point of view. Piaget, for instance, gave the following inventive response when he was asked to say how people come up with new ideas and inventive responses [see Bringuier, J.C. (1980). Conversations with Jean Piaget. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press], His response is far from being a formal, traditional response. If you want to be creative, generate new ideas, and give inventive responses --Piaget said – then (a) you should avoid reading all that was previously published on the matter where you want to be give an inventive answer. If this were not the case, you would risk spending all of your time and, after all, not having time enough even to read all that was already written on that matter. (b) You should read and know a lot about all that is somehow related to the field wherein you wish to give inventive responses. Piaget, for example, knew a lot about psychology, epistemology, philosophy, biology, logic, mathematics, and so forth; and (c) more importantly .(3)You have to have, as it were, a conceptual "enemy". Mine – Piaget went on--.is logical positivism. In other words, if we want to get ahead and give inventive responses, we have to have a theory, or even a metatheory. Needless to say, what new scientific ideas and theories, and inventive responses are greatly depends upon our conception of science. Gaston. Bachelard, Karl Popper, John Laudan, Thomas Kuhn, and Imre Lakatos, just to give 5 examples, have different, may be complimentary, conceptions of science and inventive responses

I could make this list a longer list. Be that as it may I hope that I have got your questions and that what I wrote helps.

Best regards.