Rethinking Creativity proposes that all creative advances are based on analytic thinking – on ordinary thought processes, or inside-the-box thinking. Two predictions arise from that proposal. First, analytic thought processes should be found in all examples of creativity. Second, since analytic thinking is “ordinary thinking,” ordinary folks should be capable of creative thinking. Chapter 4 examines support for those predictions. The first section presents several case studies of genius-level creative advances, which demonstrate that seminal creative advances – creative achievements at the highest level – depend on analytic thinking, in particular analogical thinking. The next level of creative achievement is “professional creativity”, advances made by people in their professional activities. Several case studies show that the analytic processes are seen here as well. On a still-lower level we have day-to-day or under-the-radar creativity: those small-scale bursts of innovation that we all exhibit in our daily lives. Under-the-radar creativity closes the circle, showing that ordinary thinking underlies all creative advances and that creativity is universal among us.

In earlier chapters, we saw multiple examples of analogical thinking in creativity. The specific role of analogical thinking in creativity is the focus of Chapter 5. The chapter first reviews general aspects of analogical thinking, which leads to an examination of the mechanisms whereby analogical thinking plays a role in creativity. One such mechanism involves analogical transfer: the solution from a problem in memory is transferred to a new problem. A different use of analogical thinking in creativity occurs when a person has been working unsuccessfully on a problem and then puts it aside. The person then encounters an object in the world that is analogous to what is needed to solve the problem and provides an idea for solution. In this chapter, we will flesh out the details underlying use of analogies, including some situations in which analogical use is difficult.