What Is Divergent Thinking?

Divergent Thinking, also known as radiant thinking, radiant thinking, diffuse thinking, or difference thinking, refers to a diffuse thinking mode that the brain presents during thinking. It manifests as a broad thinking horizon and multi-dimensional divergent thinking, such as "one question, multiple solutions", "one thing, multiple writes", "one object, multiple uses" and other methods to cultivate divergent thinking ability. Many psychologists believe that divergent thinking is the most important characteristic of creative thinking, and it is one of the main indicators for measuring creativity.

Thinking is the generalization and indirect reflection of the essential attributes and internal connections of objective things by the human brain. The novel and unique thinking activity reveals the essence and internal relationships of objective things and guides people to obtain new interpretations of problems, thereby generating unprecedented thinking results. Creative thinking, also called creative thinking. It brings new socially meaningful results to people and is the product of a person's high level of intellectual development.

Creative thinking and

1.General methods

Material divergence method-take as much "material" of an item as its divergence point, and imagine its multiple uses.

Function divergence methodStarting from the function of something, conceive various possibilities to obtain the function.

Structural divergence methodTaking the structure of something as the divergence point, imagine the various possibilities of using the structure.

Formal divergence methodTaking the form of things as the divergence point, imagine the various possibilities of using a certain form.

Combining divergence methodTake something as the divergence point and combine it with other things as much as possible to form new things.

Method Divergence Method-Taking a certain method as the divergence point, imagine the various possibilities of using the method.

Causal divergence methodtaking the result of the development of something as the point of divergence, inferring the various causes of the result, or inferring the possible results from the cause ^[5] .

2. Hypothetical guessing

Regardless of whether the hypothetical question is arbitrarily selected or limited, it should be related to the facts, situations that are temporarily impossible or things that do not exist in reality.

Most of the ideas derived from hypothetical speculation may be impractical, ridiculous, and infeasible. This is not important. What is important is that some ideas can become reasonable and useful ideas after conversion.

3. Collective divergent thinking

Divergent thinking requires not only the use of all our own brains, but sometimes the unlimited resources around us to brainstorm. Collective divergent thinking can take different forms, such as what we often call "Zhuge Lianghui." In terms of design, we usually adopt a "brainstorming". Everyone who speaks his ideas regardless of the possibility, as long as he can understand them, can be accepted by everyone and adopted, and finally draw conclusions. This method is called "brainstorming".