Multidimensionality of thinking in the context of creativity studies

Abstract

This article describes the theoretical difference between the flexibility and the multidimensionality of thinking. Multidimensionality is discussed as a characteristic of thinking that is necessary for exploration of the variability of structural transformations of problematic situations. The objective of the study was to examine a number of theories concerning the cor relative connection between the multidimensionality of thinking and other characteristics of creative, productive thinking: the flexibility of thinking; the formation of an operation of dialectical thinking such as “mediation”; the ability of a person to use a scheme as an abstraction for analysis of various specific content. A total of 85 people participated in the study: they were 15 to 17 years old, students at a senior school in Kaliningradskaya oblast, winners of different stages of the all-Russian academic competition in physics, chemistry, and mathematics. All respondents had a high level of academic success and of general intelligence. The following techniques were used in this study: (1) my technique for diagnostics of the multidimensionality of thinking; (2) my technique of “schemes and paintings,” designed for diagnostics of the ability to relate abstract schemes and various specific content; (3) the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (verbal battery); (4) a diagnostic technique for dialectical thinking: “What can be simultaneous?” All the hypotheses were confirmed. Confirmation was received of the existence of a correlation connection; this finding counts in favor of the assumption that the parameters of thinking my colleagues and I were working with can in aggregate be considered an integral characteristic of human thinking. It allows us to distinguish significant features of a situation from secondary ones—that is, to see a substantial contradiction and to propose several options for its transformation.