Correct Answer - Option 3 : Illumination
Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions.
The history of research on stages of creativity began with Graham Wallas (1926) who suggested that creative thinking follows four successive steps:
Stage of preparation:
- The subject begins to gather information about the problem to be solved and attempts some solutions.
- This stage is characterized by a state of trial-and-error in learning. Therefore, the subject is advised to learn as much as possible about the problem area.
- In preparation, the thinker begins recalling personal experiences and investigating in all different directions to gather information about the problem to be solved.
- The object of defining the focus question of interest is to list all concepts associated with the focus question.
- Since the goal of this procedure is to generate the largest possible list, the thinker should not worry about redundancy, relative importance, or relationships at this point.
Stage of incubation:
- In the second stage, the solution exists but is not clear.
- The subject must not intentionally work on the problem. Instead, it is allowed to sink into the unconscious.
- In this stage, the solution exists but is not clear. Therefore, the thinker must not intentionally work on the problem. Instead, he/she should be allowed to sink into the unconscious and the thinker is advised to relax and reflect on his/her focus question which might lead him/her to modification of the focus question.
Stage of illumination:
- In the third stage, the subject suddenly experiences insight into the problem when a new solution, idea, or relationship emerges. In other words, the subject attempts to reformulate his/her ideas or to formulate new ones.
- The subject is more active and more conscious work is needed in this stage. Therefore, in the given example, Archimedes found the solution to his problem when he was in his bathtub.
- In the stage of illumination, the thinker experiences insight into the problem when a new solution, idea, or relationship emerges. Thus, he/she attempts to reformulate his/her ideas or to formulate new ones.
Stage of verification:
- Finally, the subject tries and checks the solution.
- In this stage, some modifications may also occur to ideas reached in the previous stages.
- In the stage of verification, the thinker tests try and check the solution he/she created.
- Since this stage is the final one, the thinker may well make some modifications to his/her ideas which he/she reached in the previous stages.
- In this stage thinker should rework the structure of his/her map to represent his/her collective understanding of the interrelationships and connections among groupings, which may include adding, subtracting, or changing super-ordinate concepts, thus, he/she may need to review his/her concept map as he/she gains new knowledge or new insights.