Topic—

Going into the Colorful World of Janusian Thinking, an Omnipresent but Neglected Creative Thinking Process

Presenter—

Chen-yao Kao

Creativity and Gifted Education Today’s world is marked by fast-paced

technological advancement and dramatic change in social, political and economic arenas.

Creative thinking is now considered one of the highest abilities possessed by human beings.

It has been suggested that creative thinking be incorporated into the enrichment courses for gifted students.

Problems with Studies on Creativity

1.It is difficult to conduct quantitative research on creative thinking processes due to their inherent instability, changeability, and defiance to precise definition.

2. There has been a paucity of research on the effects of the instructional methods integrated with creative processes.

3. Janusian thinking is one of a limited number of theories regarding creative processes that are supported by clinical and experimental evidence. --Qualitative research: Rothenberg conducted intensive clinical interviews with creative writers. --Quantitative research: Rothenberg also conducted experiments to test the hypothesis that “subjects who were more creative would manifest a greater tendency toward rapid opposite response than less creative ones.”

What is Janusian Thinking?1. Creative processes are the thinking processes that direct creators toward the generation of original and meaningful outcomes. 2. Janusian thinking is a creative process that actively conceives “two or more opposite or antithetical concepts, ideas or images simultaneously” (Rothenberg, 1978, p. 175). 3. The term Janusian thinking is named after Janus, the Roman god of gateways and beginnings, whose two faces look in opposite directions simultaneously.

Examples of Janusian Thinking

1.Janusian thinking is prevalent in a wide variety of fields, but few people notice its existence, let alone its subtlety and charm.

2. Frank Lloyd Wright described his Organic Architecture as “an affirmative negation, meaning that it negated the three-dimensional concept in architecture and affirmed it simultaneously” (Rothenberg, 1971, p. 317).

3. Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone scale was established on a concept that “consonance and dissonance were equivalent” (p. 318).

4.The mysterious smile in the Mona Lisa appears both good and evil, as well as both sympathetic and relentless.

5.Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity involves the idea that an object can be both moving and at rest simultaneously.

6. Crick and Watson’s double helix structure of DNA contains identical but spatially opposite chains of molecules.

Janusian Thinking and Yin-Yang in the T’ai-Chi Tu

The conception of yin and yang in the T’ai-Chi Tu shares a strong likeness with Janusian thinking. In actuality, the interaction between yin and yang best embodies the essence of Janusian formulation.

According to Rothenberg (1990),“yin and yang represent universal opposite forces or principles,

loosely stipulated as female and male principles, respectively, functioning together as a single larger principle…. The two forces of yin and yang are encompassed within the single circle—the circle denoting all of reality or all of the universe—and they are identical but opposed.”

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Janusian Thinking and Oxymoron oxymoron is one of the quintessential examples of

Janusian thinking in language arts. Oxymoron is a rhetorical figure in which opposite

terms are combined, for example, noisy silence, sweet burdens, jumbo shrimp, passive aggression, idiot savant, little giant, flawless imperfection, virtual reality, extensive briefing, least favorite, mournful optimist, wise folly, and so forth.

Paradoxical Proverb

More haste, less speed. Everybody’s business is nobody’s business. The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of

unhappiness (Eric Hoffer). A life of ease is a difficult pursuit (William Cowper). A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected

when at last it comes (Mark Twain). There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an

exception (James Thurber).

Purposes of My Study1. Rothenberg (1990) mentioned that “verbal opposition

tends to be clearer and more specific than opposition in any other mode. Opposition between or among words is easier to define and to assess than other types of oppositional relationship.” Therefore, it is worthwhile to examine the effects of Janusian thinking on antonym learning.

2. I invented a vocabulary teaching method integrated with the creative process, Janusian thinking.

3. An experiment with a 2*2 repeated measures design was conducted to test the effectiveness of this method.

Research Question of This Study

To what extent can the Janusian thinking method enhance vocabulary learning, as compared to the traditional method, the traditional method plus sentence completion, and the traditional method plus display of antonyms. ?

Research Design

Sentence Completion

Display

of

Antonyms

No

Yes

No Yes

Traditional Method

1. Give the definition

of new words.

2. Give examples.

Traditional Method +

Sentence Completion

(No antonyms are given.)

Traditional Method +

Display of Antonyms

(Students do not actively

create sentences.)

Janusian Thinking Method

(Traditional Method +

Display of Antonyms +

Sentence Completion)

Figure 2 2*2 Repeated-measures Design for this Study

Methods—

1. The participants were 36 high school students from two classes in two schools located in northeastern Georgia, USA.

2. The independent variable was the teaching method and the dependent variable was the score on the posttest, and the two factors in this design are sentence completion and display of antonyms.

3. There were two important preparatory stages: controlling contextual richness of sentences and controlling forty words’ difficulty level.

4. Participants’ exposure to each word of the four treatment conditions was 90 seconds. The timing and transition of these slides was automatically controlled by the computer system. The order of exhibiting the 40 words was rotated.

PowerPoint Slides for the Experiment

Results

1.Non-significant Interaction between Sentence

and Antonym (F(1, 34) = 3.274, p = 0.079)--

It was very likely that some participants already

developed their own strategies for vocabulary

learning, which were quite deeply rooted in their

minds. Besides, these strategies oftentimes are

passive, shallow, and mechanical (Schmitt, 2000).

2. Significant Main Effect of Antonym (F(1, 35) = 16.371, p = 0.000, partial eta squared = 0.319) --

The meaning of a word is clarified through illustration of what it does not mean as well as what it does mean. Antonyms lay down parameters of word meaning and vigorously circumscribe sense relations. Thinking of word meanings from the opposite direction facilitates vocabulary development.

Follow-Up Studies on Janusian Thinking

I decided to change the direction of the study from English vocabulary learning to Chinese epigram creation.

There are two major reasons for this change. First, filling in the blanks in English sentences using the Janusian thinking method is too hard for Taiwanese students, for whom English is a foreign language. Second, there are not many low-frequency Chinese antonyms, so using the Janusian thinking method to teach Chinese antonyms may not be effective.

Consequently, I used the Janusian thinking method as a creative thinking activity, in which students applied Janusian thinking to epigram creation.

After I give participants a brief lecture regarding Janusian thinking, they are given incomplete sentences (translated from Chinese into English) as follows.

EXAMPLE: Bad habits are both easy and hard because ___________________.

Possible answer: Bad habits are both easy and hard because they are easy to get but hard to give up.

EXAMPLE: Comedies are both light and serious because __________________.

Possible answer: Comedies are both light and serious because jokes are used to give lessons.

Examples of Epigram(translated from Chinese into English)

Time is both fast and slow because happy moments fly away but painful moments crawl along.

Tongues are both dull and sharp because blunt tongues cut. Children are both angelic and devilish because they look like

angels when they are asleep but act like devils when they are awake.

Success is both happy and sad because you lose a goal at the same time as you achieve it.

Forgiveness is both kind and unkind because forgiving good people is merciful but forgiving evil people is cruel.

The End

Questions and Suggestions