A common belief that children are more creative than adults has not held up in a new study: adult participants produced more original and successful ideas, yet lagged noticeably behind preschoolers in self-confidence, infohub.kz reports.
Psychologists at the University of Graz in Austria ran an experiment involving 92 children aged five and six and 70 adults around 20 years old. Participants were given three tasks: come up with unusual uses for a tin can within three minutes, complete a free drawing with no time limit, and draw a nonexistent fantasy animal within eight minutes. Five independent experts rated 670 ideas and 324 drawings blind, without knowing the authors' ages.
In every test, the adults' work scored higher for novelty, effectiveness and overall creativity. Their advantage was most pronounced in creating an imaginary creature, which required inventing something fundamentally new. The children spent less time on the tasks but rated their own results much more highly, were barely afraid of making mistakes and enjoyed the process more.
Nevertheless, almost 79% of the adults surveyed still called children more creative. According to study co-author Mathias Benedek, people often confuse children's visible enthusiasm and love of role-play with real ability. The researcher advised adults to borrow preschoolers' playful approach and their knack for generating ideas without fear of others' judgment.