Age and Creativity: Implications for Education and Teachers

The purpose of this article is to discuss the implications for education and teachers that can be drawn from the current literature on creativity and aging. The article concentrates on the cognitive capacity aspects of creativity rather than personality variables. Our goal is to present pertinent literature, much of which has not been reviewed together before, and to synthesize this information in a way that is relevant to developing continuing education programs that will enhance creativity in the second half of the life span. We discuss the nature of creativity and the theory surrounding psychological investigations of creativity and point out that whether one views creativity as a relatively stable state made up of component processes or as a divergent cognitive style can lead to different, and sometimes contradictory, types of research. Evidence is presented that people have individual styles of thinking (e.g., convergent and divergent) that are more common to particular types of education. A review of the literature on creativity across the adult life span indicates a decline in creative activity with increasing age. The methods and conditions that foster creativity are described, and the implications of these studies for education, teachers, and older adults are discussed.