You may have heard of divergent and convergent thinking. These are two different ways of coming up with solutions to problems. While convergent thinking focuses on the obvious, linear solutions to problems, divergent thinking focuses on creative solutions that may not be immediately obvious or logical.
It might be a little difficult to understand just what this means based on the definition alone, which is why plenty of divergent thinking examples will be provided here. Hopefully, you’ll have a firm grasp on the difference between divergent and convergent thinking when all is said and done.
Divergent Thinking Examples
Making Money
Imagine that you are a teenager who needs to make money in order to achieve some goal. Perhaps you are saving up for a car, or maybe you just want a new game. Point is, you need money, and you have to think of a way to get it.
Convergent thinking would have you follow the obvious linear path to achieving what you want. You need money, and having a job earns money. Therefore, you should get a job. It’s simple and straightforward.
Divergent thinking would involve you brainstorming other, less obvious ways to make money. Perhaps a yard sale is in order? Maybe you want to sell your premium baseball cards? You could mow the lawns of your neighbors, or start your own blog that gets advertisement revenue.
When you engage in divergent thinking, you come up with many potential ideas that are not ‘guaranteed’ and obvious solutions to the problem that you have. Basically, it’s the ability to think outside of the box.
Using Objects Creatively
Convergent and divergent thinking are often related to how we use objects as well. Convergent thinking follows the obvious: you use a hammer for nails. Socks go on your feet. Books are to be read. Convergent thinking follows the logic that objects are to be used for their intended purpose.
Divergent thinking, on the other hand, would involve coming up with creative ways to use objects for purposes they were never intended for. Maybe you tie rubber bands around the hammer to create your own rubber mallet. Perhaps you would rather use the socks for puppets? You have an uneven table, so you use a book to support the uneven leg.
This can be done with all sorts of objects: after all, most everything has an intended use, but rarely is any item actually limited to the thing it was intended to achieve. Divergent thinking is what leads to people using cups and strings as communication devices, hair clips as laptop hinges, stools as TV stands, and all sorts of other creative things.
The Candle Problem
Perhaps you have heard of this particular experiment from Karl Duncker in 1945. You are in a room, with a table pushed up against the wall. You have a candle, a box of matches, and thumbtacks. You are told that you must affix the candle to the wall above the table, in a manner in which the wax from the candle does not drip onto the table.
Convergent thinking would dictate that this is not possible. You do not have the right tools or objects to achieve the objective you have been given. None of the things provided to you are designed to do what you’ve been told to do.
Divergent thinking, however, acknowledges that the answer may be to use the objects you have been given in unique ways that they were not designed for. Many people who are faced with this theoretical problem fail to consider the potential applications of all the tools they have been given.
The solution is to empty the box of matches, pin the box to the wall with the thumbtacks, place the candle in the mounted box, and light it. Any wax that comes off the candle will land in the box, not on the table. This is a solution that would never be reached using convergent thinking.
After, all, convergent thinking would see the matchbox as a box, not as a potential platform. This is why divergent thinking is most commonly tied to creativity. It’s all about coming up with solutions that are not ‘rational’ in the way one would normally think about problems and solutions.
Bending Game Mechanics
Have you ever heard of speedrunners? They are people who try to complete games as fast as they possibly can. Doing so often requires divergent thinking: creative ways of shaving time off of a run, often in ways that were never intended to be used, by taking advantage of game mechanics.
Some classic methods would include standing on top of another player’s head to get more height to a jump or using an explosive blast to launch you through the air to a place one normally wouldn’t be able to reach. Some methods required one to intentionally glitch their character through the game world to move through it faster.
All of these are divergent thinking examples, times when people see mechanics or objects and thought creatively about how they could be used in ways that were not immediately obvious, or in ways that they were never really meant to be used.
Summary
As you can see, there are many ways divergent thinking can be used. It’s really just about finding creative solutions to problems that are not immediately obvious. It is easily achieved via things like brainstorming, where you allow yourself to consider even seemingly ridiculous options as solutions to problems.
Be it finding creative ways to make money, unique ways to beat games, unforeseen ways to solve mechanical problems, or just ways to use items around your house to achieve things they were not meant to, divergent thinking can really take you a long way when it comes to solving problems.
Of course, this is not to say there isn’t a time and place for convergent thinking as well, but it’s better to have both abilities in spades than to have just one or the other.
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