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Learning to Imagine
The Science of Discovering New Possibilities
Andrew Shtulman • Harvard UP © 2023 • 352 pages

Workplace Skills / Learning Techniques

Innovation / Creativity

Take-Aways
• The belief that children are more imaginative than adults is ill-founded.
• Imagination evolved for practical purposes.
• Learning and knowledge provide the building blocks for innovation.
• People think of creativity as a skill and imagination as an innate trait, but both depend on your
knowledge base.
• Examples shape what people consider possible – but also inspire incremental innovations.
• Principles enable abstract imagining.
• Models are linked with, but also separate from, the real, which allows for new sorts of learning and, thus,
imagining.
• Imagination is a buildable skill.

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 Recommendation
Cognitive developmental psychologist Andrew Shtulman dispels the myth that children are masters of
imagination. He argues that imagination develops through education, practice and thoughtful reflection. It’s
a buildable skill more than an innate quality, and certainly one that does not languish with age. Shtulman
shows that children tend to imitate more than innovate. His scholarly treatise explains that people of all ages
can enhance their imagination and creative abilities by learning from examples and applying principles and
models from various fields, such as mathematics, literature and religion.

Summary

The belief that children are more imaginative than adults is ill-founded.

In stories like Peter Pan, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Mary Poppins, children are portrayed
as open to wonder and magic, while adult characters are not – suggesting that children have a far more
powerful capacity for imagination than grownups. However, a closer examination of children’s pretend
play reveals that, more often than not, children lean more toward imitation than innovation. Children
pretend to cook and clean – mirroring adult activities – and their creations, like forts and block towers, are
kid versions of things they see in the real world.

“Forty years of research on how people reason about novel possibilities reveals that the
glorification of children’s imagination is misguided.”

When playing games, children adhere to rules and strongly resist the suggestion of deviating from
them. They focus on recreating familiar objects and struggle with abstract concepts when making art. Some
children create imaginary friends, but they usually resemble real ones, and their imaginary worlds mimic
reality.

Imagination evolved for practical purposes.

Adults face similar limitations when it comes to “unstructured” imagination. When asked to imagine an
entirely new animal, for example, people often add minor features to known entities rather than create
something completely different. This limitation is, in some ways, by design. Imagination evolved for
practical purposes, like planning your next steps or making predictions about what you will encounter in a
given scenario, not for creating fantastical ideas.

“When we use imagination to contemplate far alternatives – to innovate or fabricate –

we’re not tapping into an innate appreciation for the extraordinary; we’re coopting a
tool designed to explore the ordinary.”

Because imagination evolved to consider alternatives close to reality rather than far-fetched scenarios,
people use it most often to explore the ordinary, not the extraordinary. Setting goals that are too
detached from current realities or predicting outcomes that are too divergent from your past
experiences and discoveries – or those of others – limits accuracy and usefulness. Contemplation

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 of past and future possibilities forms your understanding of missed opportunities. It helps you navigate
toward potential success and away from failure. But considering only expected events may lead you to
ignore improbable ones. Thus, adults, like children, may mistakenly dismiss improbable or unconventional
events as impossible or remain overly skeptical after considering a novel but potentially game-changing idea.

Children do tend to exhibit greater curiosity and explore their environments more thoroughly than the
typical adult. In one study, researchers asked children and adults to test a series of blocks, which may or
may not be “zaffs,” with a “zaff detector.” The detector would light up upon the discovery of a zaff. Once
they discovered a pattern – such as a black stripe on the blocks that triggered the detector – the adults quit
the exercise. Children persisted with it longer and, thus, discovered more forms of zaffs than the adults
identified. Children’s tendency to linger and tinker contrasts with adults’ inclination to conclude and move
on. While exploration can lead to new knowledge, a stronger sense of curiosity doesn’t prove children
are more imaginative than adults. Physical exploration differs from exploring a mental landscape of ideas.

Learning and knowledge provide the building blocks for innovation.

Children can use or even make a hook to retrieve a toy trapped in a hole, but only if they’ve previously
seen someone else do it; they don’t naturally think of creating a hook. Adults also struggle to generate new
ideas when solving problems, but they have an important advantage over children: a more extensive
knowledge base. Knowledge defines the boundaries of your imagination, often keeping you within known
realms but sometimes pointing to new ones. If you know what’s true or how something currently functions,
you have a starting point for thinking of “counterfactuals” – alternate ways of accomplishing tasks or using
available materials.

Psychologists Douglas Hofstadter and Emmanuel Sander compare imagination and knowledge to a train
and its tracks. Learning from others and making your own discoveries – gaining knowledge – transports
your imagination to new realms. The challenge lies in integrating new insights within your existing
knowledge.

“Appreciating a groundbreaking idea – example, principle or model – takes time and

effort, as does connecting that idea to what we already know. These activities do not
strike us as ‘imaginative’ because we think of imagination as a free resource, a trait we
are born with, rather than a skill we must develop.”

One of the primary ways that people expand their knowledge and, therefore, their imaginations is by
“examples”: learning what others have seen or discovered or experiencing what they have invented – and
then applying that in some way to their lives or to the problems they’re trying to solve. Some individuals
excel more than others at integrating new possibilities into their understanding. The more familiar you
become with a subject area, the easier it becomes to add new ideas. Limited exploration often leads to
outright rejection of new concepts.

People also expand their understanding of what’s possible by mastering new abstract “principles” –
mathematical, scientific and ethical. For instance, upon learning that dolphins are mammals, your view of
marine life might change, but grasping the principle of common descent reshapes your understanding of all

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 life forms. Examples, like seeing someone create a hook to retrieve a fallen toy, open new but specific idea
pathways; principles equip you with tools to extend those paths independently.

“Models” – another method for expanding imagination – are even more potent than examples or principles.
A model simulates something in the real world, but it allows you to alter critical features of that object and
then observe to discover how a given change affects its functioning. Simulations help you uncover the
unknown consequences of your beliefs and let you safely explore alternatives to the status quo.

People think of creativity as a skill and imagination as an innate trait, but both
depend on your knowledge base.

Studies of creativity tend to frame it as a competence an individual can grow with time and effort. These
same studies often use some form of the Unusual Uses Test, whereby study participants are asked to
brainstorm as many uses as possible for an everyday object. However, the test is flawed as a gauge of
innovation. After all, discovering an unusual use for an object does not equate to designing a practical
solution to a problem, and like any other circumstance in which a person is asked to draw on their current
knowledge base – rather than add to it and then innovate – test subjects are unlikely to come up with
valuable creative possibilities.

“Prior knowledge might constrain the search for novel possibilities, but the search itself
requires knowing where to begin.”

Creativity emerges from expanded imagination, which occurs when you grow your knowledge. The Beatles
didn’t become a groundbreaking music group in and of themselves. They spent years exploring others’
musical discoveries before generating anything innovative themselves. Bear in mind that if you equate
creativity with originality, you will find few acts of creativity that qualify. Only rarely does anyone contribute
something original to collective human knowledge – creating breakthrough technologies or founding
new cultural or artistic forms. If, however, you define creativity as what occurs when people add to their
understanding – via examples, principles or models – and thus begin playing with new concepts, then most
humans frequently exhibit creativity.

Examples shape what people consider possible – but also inspire incremental
innovations.

A child’s belief in fantasy figures like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy is not sparked in the imagination;
parents, teachers and society inform it. When such complicity is absent, children are highly skeptical of
unrealistic scenarios, such as the possibility of owning a pet lion. Indeed, when questioned, most children
deem even events that are merely improbable to be impossible. Adults, by contrast, can generally conceive
of circumstances – presuming that they don’t violate known principles – under which the improbable could
occur – imagining how, for example, an everyday person might come to own and care for a lion.

If presented with sufficient evidence – directly observable or explained – to accept the possible reality of
something improbable – be it an idea, technology or phenomenon – people’s imaginations ignite. They
begin to “tinker” with the idea or thing, and, over time, innovations evolve. The modern sewing needle, for
example, evolved into its current form over hundreds of years.

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 Principles enable abstract imagining.

Children initially rely on simple forms of causation when thinking about the natural world. They later learn
more complex principles like emergence – the many elements that lead to and cause a thunderstorm, for
example. After learning broader principles of causation, people can apply them to various ideas. Knowledge
of the effects of germs, for example, can help learners overcome the initially alluring notion that going out in
the cold underdressed causes a cold. With practice, learners can also apply principles through analogies to
expand their imaginations. Ernest Rutherford, for example, discovered “atomic orbitals” by contemplating
the principles of the solar system.

“Principles may connote monotony and rigidity, but they actually inspire novelty and
creativity. A principled imagination is a productive imagination.”

In mathematics, children start with counting, basic estimation and pattern matching, eventually mastering
concepts that require imagination, like fractions and symmetry. At first, children deny even the possibility of
fractions. As they experience concrete and tangible evidence – containers half full or three-quarters full, for
example – they begin grasping abstract ideas such as simple fractions and percentages.

A similar phenomenon occurs in the realms of ethics and morality. Children initially believe that something
that results in a wrong should be punishable, even if it happened by accident, and that if a person intended
harm to another but failed, no wrong was committed. Neither can children separate fairness from
equity. For example, if three friends have six crates to stand on to reach apples on a tree branch, even if
they don’t need two crates to reach the apples, they won’t consider giving their shorter friend more crates.
Only with time and guidance do children learn to take other’s perspectives and assess other people’s mental
states. Again, this act of imagination follows a process of learning and acquiring knowledge.

Once they have been shown how to do a thing, children assume a hard line. They cling to the process
they know, even when shown a better process without flaws or unnecessary steps. To overcome their
rigidity, children need guidance in comparing observations and using their imaginations to abstract general
principles. For adults and children, imagining new processes and behaviors outside social norms takes effort
and contemplation. Norms and processes do evolve, however. For example, many people today accept same-
sex marriage (a new moral norm) but reject underage marriage (an old moral norm).

Models are linked with, but also separate from, the real, which allows for new sorts
of learning and, thus, imagining.

Children often reject pretend scenarios that defy real-world norms. They prefer play that enhances
their understanding of real-world objects and situations. Pretend play is a form of modeling. It requires
imagination, but it doesn’t demand innovation. Children can learn from play, but they learn best when
instruction precedes play and when play is guided rather than self-directed.

“Children spend much less time pretending than is commonly believed, and when they
do engage in pretense, it is typically for the purpose of rehearsing real-world activities,
particularly the work of adults.”

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 Fiction is another kind of model that can help both children and adults to expand their imaginations.
Children tend to prefer nonfiction or realistic fiction to fantasy. When encountering magic in stories, they
expect it to follow real-world causal principles. Even the Harry Potter and Narnia series, though rich in
fantasy, ground their stories in the recognizable – characters live in houses, have parents and deal with
problems that have some basis in the real world. Fiction helps children learn about the consequences of
choices and teaches “social reasoning” – understanding and empathizing with others’ feelings and points of
view. And it gives people, in general, a chance to learn what it means to challenge norms or go beyond their
comfort zones without needing to suffer any real-world fallout.

In the realm of religion, children also tend to shy away from the fantastical. They typically see God as a
human figure who eats, sleeps, burps and sneezes. They don’t believe that God can perform impossible feats,
like turn a dog into a cow. To fully engage with abstract religious concepts, such as an omnipresent spirit,
requires people to stretch their sense of possibility.

Imagination is a buildable skill.

Learning new concepts and applying them in the world in ways that push the boundaries of what you
consider possible is hard work. You must cultivate this skill if you want to use it well. Imagination,
conceptualized as a skill rather than a trait, dispels several myths – for example, that ignorance fuels
imagination or that structured learning causes children to lose their inherent brilliance. Yet research
shows unguided learning often yields poor results, with students discovering little beyond their preexisting
knowledge or misconceptions.

“Education can be a slog, and learning can be uninspired, but there is no substitute for
knowledge when it comes to expanding imagination.”

While education might routinize behavior and teach known solutions, that doesn’t mean it impedes
innovation. By expanding your knowledge, education expands your imagination. Realizing novel ideas
demands that you first acquire foundational knowledge. People learn best from instruction combined with
subsequent free exploration – the instruction sparks curiosity, which leads to productive imagining and
creation.

About the Author

Andrew Shtulman is a cognitive developmental psychologist renowned for his research on conceptual
development and change, especially in science education.

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