Why are some people so grounded in reality that they have no imagination or creative thoughts of their own?

Answer 1

Actually, I disagree with a previous post. In fact, children who are abused and who face harsh upbringings have been shown to have MORE abstract thinking. For example, it is commonly accepted now that a main cause of dissociative identity disorder (i.e. split personality) is child abuse. These individuals use their imaginations to help dissociate themselves from some problem.

The answer to the question comes down to what is adaptive for the individual? Does creative thinking get me further today (i.e. if I think outside the box will it get me a promotion? help me solve this problem?) or am I better off following protocol. There is no one answer as this is a continuum. Sometimes an individual might be extremely creative but in another context not so much.

As much as creativity is a continuum, so are the individual differences in this characteristic. For example, I might be more or less creative than the next person overall but still vary on the level within myself.

Answer 2

Reality ceases to exist once there is no imagination or creative thoughts. So that statement of urs is void. The only reason there is reality is cos of you and me and all the others in this world. So, If you dont have a thought how can there be a reality?

Answer 3

Reality in everyday usage means "everything that exists". The term reality, in its widest sense, includes everything that is, whether it is observable, accessible or understandable by science, philosophy, or any other system of analysis. Reality in this sense may include both being and nothingness, whereas existence is often restricted to being. On a much broader and more subjective level, the private experiences, curiosity, inquiry, and selectivity involved in the personal interpretation of an event shapes reality as seen by one and only one individual and hence is called phenomenological. This form of reality might be common to others as well, but at times could also be so unique to oneself as to be never experienced or agreed upon by any one else. Much of the spiritual experience of an individual occurs on this level of reality.

Answer 4

Apart from IQ and a well-developed frontal lobe with all it's connections intact (i.e. not a pot smoker), I believe a brutal upbringing, poor parenting skills disallowing abstract thought and ideas, old fashioned strict schooling, poverty, drugs (including prescribed medications) and institutionalisation such as gaol and Service life all contribute to only being able to have concrete thought processes. A good screening test is to tell a cryptic or longer joke. They become blank and quizzical.

Answer 5

because there are caught up in reality, they cant get over it