You Are a Genius!

Watch this TikTok clip about the NASA study (from an interview I did) that went viral and share with your friends. 

In the 1960s, NASA funded a study to figure out how to recruit more geniuses. George Land led a research team that asked a very important question: What makes someone a genius? What they found was that 98% of 5 year-olds could be classified as a genius based on the use of their imagination to creatively solve problems. That’s right, 98 percent! 

But by the time they were 10, only 30% were still connected to genius. When they reached 15, only 12% were geniuses. The reason that genius dropped from 98% to 12% in ten years? Schooling. Land then surveyed an adult population and found only 2% of adults were geniuses. Land attributed this to schooling and said that uncreative thinking and behavior is learned. 98% of us were born with creative genius.

Land noted that school requires children to use two kinds of thinking simultaneously - divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent, thinking is what you use when brainstorming possibilitie using your imagination. It leads to new ideas. Convergent thinking is a logical process of judging options and making decisions.  Land believed that by forcing both kinds of thinking to exist simultaneously, it led to a cognitive clash and decline in creativity.

Reconnect with your genius today!