Difference Between Imagination and Creativity
While it is true, the words -imagination- and -creativity- are closely related and are often used interchangeably in some cases, although there is a relative difference between each of them. It can be said that imagination and creativity are aptitudes that the person possesses from birth and that these are developed thanks to the educational, environmental, family, cultural and social opportunities that are offered to the person.
Next, we proceed to show the definition of both terms with the intention of providing the reader with more information about these two human aptitudes and that he can understand the meaning and scope of each one of them for their correct use and differentiation.
Imagination
It can be said that imagination is a faculty, ability or human aptitude to represent through mental images endless objects, situations, experiences, events, feelings, people, among others, whether they are real or idealized.
Imagination is therefore the mental representation of certain real or unreal elements. Imagination is an abstract process, which means that it does not need the presence of real objects to represent them in the mind. The imagination takes the objects, experiences, sensations or feelings stored in the memory to transform them and represent them mentally.
Creativity
It can be said that creativity is the human capacity to invent and create. It is a very important capacity for the human being, since it is what allows the creation of new things from the transformation of what already exists. The word creativity comes from the Latin word -creare- whose meaning is to engender.
Creativity is an innate quality of people but it develops in some people more than in others, according to the possibilities and opportunities that the person has throughout his life in attention to problem solving and the need to solve situations specific that require the use of new methods or objects.
Imagination and creativity are two innate human abilities that have elements in common, such as, for example, they are personal, since neither the imagination nor the creativity of one person can be transferred to another, that is, each person contributes something different to the idea. raised.
From this statement, it can be said that although they are closely linked, they are not the same. Both capacities have particular characteristics or implications that differentiate them from each other and which are expressed below:
| Imagination | Creativity |
| Imagination implies a mental construction based on previous ideas, experiences, feelings or knowledge. | Creativity implies real construction, that is, the materialization of what was previously imagined. |
| Imagination is abstract, since it consists of thinking new things. | Creativity is mainly a practice, so it is specified in something created. |
| Imagination expresses itself through the mind. | Creativity is expressed through something or a palpable fact. |
| Imagination is a cumulative mechanism that includes experiences, knowledge, sensations and prior knowledge. | Creativity is an expressive mechanism that manifests itself in the construction of something new. |