Combination Creativity

Creative people are often seen as a rarity: smart, curious, and able to look at the world with fresh eyes. A common misconception is that creativity cannot be cultivated, and that instead some lucky people have an innate sense of creativity. But this assumption is wrong. According to classical psychology research, there are three main types of creativity: exploratory, transformational, and combinational creativity. While we often force ourselves to use exploratory creativity—generating new ideas within a given space—or transformational creativity—ignoring fundamental rules to come up with potentially impossible but highly creative ideas—the reality is that most new ideas come from combinational creativity. Combinational creativity is the process of combining old ideas to come up with something new. Of course it’s exciting to believe that we’re able to come up with unique concepts out of thin air, but the most celebrated creators, such as artists, scientists, inventors, or writers, are also strong advocates for exploring as many old ideas as possible in order to create your own.