Why we reach peak creativity in our 20s… and at 57!

OUR twenties are often assumed to be the most creative period of our lives.

But research shows that some of us have to wait until we’re in our fifties before we really start to flourish.

A study of Nobel Prize winners found there are two peaks of creativity – one between the ages of 25 and 29 and a second around the age of 57. Researchers from Ohio State University in the US said that in younger people, creativity often derives from flashes of insight on how to do things differently. But in later life, it relies on decades of knowledge and trial and error.

The researchers studied 31 Nobel laureates and divided them into two categories: ‘conceptual’ and ‘ experimental’. Conceptual innovators ‘think outside the box’. They challenge conventional wisdom and tend to come up with new ideas suddenly – before becoming immersed in the accepted theories of the field. Experimental thinkers accumulate knowledge throughout their careers and analyse that knowledge to come up with new ways of thinking.

The researchers then determined the age at which the 31 laureates made their most important work. They found that conceptual thinkers peaked at either 29 or 25 years old, while experimental laureates peaked when they were roughly twice as old – somewhere in their mid-fifties.

The study found the long periods of trial and error required for important experimental innovations mean they tend to occur later in a career.