Why do young people (often) have more imagination?

Posted by: Stephen Baker on January 11, 2008

I looked into research at Harvard on the imagination gap between young and old. Since we couldn’t come up with a business angle, I’m blogging it.

It starts with memory. Children remember things with more detail. Older people tend to wrap vaguer memories in layers of context. Research at Harvard now shows a correlation between the detailed memories of the young and their ability to imagine. Lively memories=lively imagination.

When it comes to imagination, the rest of us appear to be fenced in by all the context we carry around, even if we flatter ourselves by calling it “experience” or “wisdom.” This is why from a corporate perspective (this is the angle I was pushing), young people should be included on every team.

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