Renowned psychologist Gilford points out: “Human creativity depends mainly on divergent thinking, which is the main part of creative thinking.”

Here the divergent thinking referred to is a way of thinking that is relative to centralized thinking. Divergent thinking explores problems from different angles, analyzes from different levels, and compares from the positive and negative poles, so that a wide vision and active thinking can produce a large number of unique new ideas.

Focused thinking means that people’s thinking about solving problems from one side. It moves toward amassing to form a unique and definitive answer. For example, 8 + 5 = 13, this is the idea of aggregation. But if we asked: “What numbers add up to 13?” There are many conclusions. This is divergent thinking, which is more conducive to the cultivation of creative thinking.

Divergent thinking is able to be very creative, because it allows people to quickly and flexibly think in the face of problems with multiple angles and multiple levels of dispersal, from a given information to obtain multiple novel answers.

However, the creativity of divergent thinking cannot be separated from convergent thinking. The best answers can only be selected from the analysis and comparison of various answers through convergent thinking.

Therefore, in order to cultivate students’ creative thinking, both of which should be paid attention to. Only because students are influenced and bound by the traditional way of thinking. When they encounter problems, they tend to think narrowly and hard to expand, which becomes the primary obstacle to creative thinking, so they are dispersed in practical training. The training of thinking should give special attention.

Cultivate own divergent thinking must be seen through the problem and grasp the essence of the premise. The key is to be able to break the mind of the trend and change a single way of thinking with the use of association, imagination, conjecture, thinking, etc as far as possible to expand the thinking from all angles of the problem. That includes thinking backward, or reverse, or vertical, or horizontal kinds of flexible and agile thinking to obtain numerous scenarios or assumptions.

For example, composition – from the examination of questions, ideas to material selection, structure, from the selection of a word to a sentence of modification, almost no need to divergence thinking.

If the thinking expands well, there are many things to choose from, and the selected results are novel and creative, and the articles written will make people feel fresh in all aspects.

So how to cultivate own divergent thinking? Here should focus step by step on three levels of self-cultivation.

How to cultivate divergent thinking?

1. Fluency

Fluency is the first level of divergent thinking, that is, to train own thinking speed so that it can express more concepts in a short time, enumerate more problem-solving solutions, and explore more possibilities.

For example, write down all words that contain “a”. The number of words each person written will vary. This is the difference between a person’s fluency

2. Flexibility

Flexibility is a more multi-level divergence characteristic, that is, to cultivate a good quality of flexible thinking from different angles.

For example, in writing words that contain “a”. If the words is diversified, for examples, both capital and small letters, both in the beginning, middle and end of the words, all of these indicating that person has a good flexibility.

3. Novelty

It is the highest level of divergent thinking and the essence of seeking difference. Novelty refers to the innovation of views and ideas that a person puts forward and generates.

Cultivating convergent thinking is mainly to cultivate the ability to analyze, compare, synthesize, and choose from many answers or hypotheses provided by divergent thinking.

The cultivation of these abilities has been described earlier. With these abilities, we will choose the best answer and get creative results through the convergence of their minds.

It should also be mentioned here that the training of intuitive thinking should also be strengthened in the cultivation of the convergent thinking, which plays an important role in speeding up the speed of convergence and improving the efficiency of thinking.

Divergent thinking is able to be very creative, because it allows people to quickly and flexibly think in the face of problems with multiple angles, and multiple levels of dispersal, from a given information to obtain multiple novel answers. However, the creativity of divergent thinking cannot be separated from the convergent thinking, only through the convergence of thinking can the best answers be chosen from the various answers the best answer after  analysis and comparison. Therefore, both creative thinking and convergent thinking are essential to cultivate the divergent thinking.