Divergent thinking is one aspect of creativity. We can contrast divergent thinking with convergent thinking.
Convergent thinking is what we do when we “attack a problem from all sides.” We have one problem we’re trying to solve, and all of our approaches converge on that problem (hopefully to a solution for that problem).
Divergent thinking, on the other hand, is when we take a single idea, object, framework, or method, and see how many applications or interpretations we can come up with.
Divergent thinking requires a beginner’s mind For example, one common test for divergent thinking asks participants to name as many uses for a paperclip as they can in a finite amount of time. If you approach this task with an expert’s mind, with years experience of using paperclips in everyday office work, they might not think about what they could do with a paper clip that’s made out of foam and is twenty feet long or consider stringing together 10,000 paperclips to make chain mail. This kind of creative approach is “childlike” in the best sense; a child is always looking at the world with beginner’ mind, and is therefore less constrained by their expectations of how things ought to be.