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Box 7.2 Lateral Thinking the ‘Six thinking hats’ technique to stimulate different Edward de Bono has used the term ‘lateral thinking’ to what Guilford termed as divergent modes of thinking. One can put on or take off these thinking. He makes a distinction between verticalats according to the type of thinking required to be thinking and lateral thinking. Vertical thinkingused. White hat means gathering information, facts, involves mental operations that move in a straightgures, and filling gaps in information. Red hat covers line back and forth between lower and higher expression of feelings, and emotions on the subject. level concepts whereas lateral thinking involvesBlack hat represents judgment, caution and logic. looking for alternative ways of defining and Yellow hat covers thinking on what will work and interpreting problems. He states “vertical (logical)it will be beneficial. Green hat is for creativity, thinking digs the same hole deeper, i.e. thinkinglternatives and changes. Blue hat represents deeper in the same direction; lateral thinking ishinking about the process and not the ideas as such. concerned with digging a hole in another place”.The ‘six thinking hats’ reflect different perspectives De Bono suggests that lateral thinking can help from which an issue or problem is viewed. The make mental leaps and is likely to create a technique can be used individually as well as in number of ways of thinking. De Bono developed groups. • Originality is the ability to produce ideas are important for creative thinking. Divergent that are rare or unusual by seeing new thinking is essential in generating a wide range relationships,combiningoldideaswithnew of ideas. Convergent thinking is important to ones, looking at things from different identify the most useful or appropriate idea. perspectives etc. Research has shown that fluency and flexibility are the necessary Activity 7.3 conditions for originality. The more and varied ideas one produces, the greater the Frame five different kinds of questions requiring divergent thinking on issues and problems related likelihood of original ideas. to traffic management/pollution/corruption/ • Elaboration is the ability that enables a illiteracy/poverty. Share and discuss in the class. person to go into details and workout implications of new ideas. Divergent thinking abilities facilitate Process of Creative Thinking generation of a variety of ideas which may not seem to be related. For example, what are the In recent years, more and more attention has been given to the way the human mind common ideas for enhancing food production? The likely answers would be related to quality operates. Research has made it clear that of seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, and so on. If thinking of new and unusual ideas involve more than a flash of insight. There are stages someone thinks of cultivation in a desert for before and after the new ideas come. extracting protein from weeds, it would be a remote idea. The association here is between The starting point in creative process is the ‘food production’ and ‘desert’ or ‘weeds’. need to think or bring out something new which initiates the effort. Not everyone Ordinarily, we do not associate these together. experiencesthisneed,asonecanbehappyand But, if we let our mind free to seek new and contented, in carrying out routine work. The remote associations, a number of combination need for search of new ideas and solutions of ideas may arise out of which one or two may arises from sensing problems and gaps in turn out to be original. You must remember information. The process of creative thinking that both convergent and divergent thinking begins with the preparation stage that 118 Psychology Reprint 2026-27