Adults think kids are more creative than they are, but new research shows that's not the case

KEY TAKEAWAYS

New research challenges the belief that children are more creative than adults.
Adults showed more novel and effective ideas but lacked children's confidence and enthusiasm.
The study suggests creativity thrives with cognitive control while children enjoy unstructured tasks.

ATLANTA — Emily Liu's 2-year-old daughter, Rose, writes piano melodies, makes up yoga moves and turns mixing bowls and pacifiers into hats and jewelry. She makes up her own recipes too, although consumers should be wary of rocks.

"Nobody's told her it's supposed to be done a certain way, or supposed to look a certain way," said Liu, who lives in Atlanta. "Creativity stems from that kind of autonomy, independence and innocence that comes with being a young child."

Many people share Liu's sentiment that kids are more creative than adults. But new research suggests that they might just be more confident in their creativity.

The study, published recently in PLOS One, found that adults aren't less creative than preschoolers. In fact, grownups had more novel and effective ideas while completing creative tasks. However, preschoolers demonstrated more self-confidence and enthusiasm about the activities — particularly those without constraints or goals.

"Even if you're a super creative thinker, you might not actually show it if you don't feel encouraged, or if you're fearful that your ideas might get rejected," said study coauthor Mathias Benedek, a researcher at the University of Graz in Austria.

Researchers assigned 92 children and 70 adults three tasks: drawing a mythological creature, finding unique uses for a tin can, and drawing anything they wanted. Their work was evaluated based on novelty, effectiveness and overall creativity.

Adults scored higher than children across the three criteria, especially when given the tin can and mythological creature tasks with specific goals. The results indicate that creativity thrives under greater cognitive and metacognitive control, Benedek said.

Still, children reported a more positive experience throughout the tasks, indicating higher self-efficacy, motivation, enjoyment and self-appraisal. Adults reported higher anxiety that they wouldn't perform well on the tasks.

"Children really thrived when there was no clear goal — for example, the creative drawing task, they really liked that most," Benedek said. "Adults didn't feel comfortable when they had no clear goal in the task. They really wanted to understand what they were supposed to do."

What happens to creativity?

At the beginning of the study, participants were asked whether they think children or adults are more creative. Children split evenly on the answer, while 78% of adults agreed that children are more creative. The results supported a pre-study survey, where 80% of adult respondents shared the same view.

This might be because people perceive creativity differently, according to Maryam Abdullah, the parenting program director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley — relating it to "emotional or experiential creativity, rather than the actual sophistication of creativity."

Liu, who also has a 9-year-old son, tries to encourage her daughter's creativity by asking open-ended questions and giving her independence. She agrees that children are more creative than adults.

"There's an innocence about them. They haven't been impacted by society yet," Liu said. "They're not worried about social norms, they're not worried about being judged or what the right way to do something is. They're just doing what comes naturally to them."

This widespread impression that children are more creative — something Sandra Russ, a distinguished psychology professor at Case Western Reserve University, said most researchers would refute — was what Benedek said inspired the study in the first place.

Fostering creativity with your kids

Russ, who authored a book about creativity and play, emphasized that parents and teachers giving children time and space for unstructured, independent activities is critical for fostering creativity.

"If they want you to engage with them — draw with them, play with them — do it," Russ said. "But let them make up the story, let them make up the drawing. Don't interfere."

She said that for kids ages 4 through 9, creativity often manifests as pretend play with dolls, cars, building blocks or other toys. Once the preteen years hit, it becomes more cognitive: Creativity can mean daydreaming, making up a science project or approaching a math problem with a unique perspective.

Abdullah added that one of the first steps to supporting children's creativity is to notice and affirm it. She said that simply telling children that it's valuable to think outside the box will encourage more creative behavior.

"The study asks, 'Are children really more creative than adults?' And the findings answer that question," Abdullah said. "But what it asks that's more interesting is, 'Are children creative more often than adults?'"

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.